Disposable Heroes
by H80NP
Summary: a new chapter has begun in the lives of all members of the pines family after the shack is Bill-proof. but this new chapter begins a different way for Stanford Pines. When the rest of the family are on a road trip, Stanford sees the changes in the shack and discovers a copier...
1. Ford-discovery

**Chapter one: Ford-discovery**

Stanford Pines woke up in his study room from a dreamless – Bill less – sleep. Last night was one of the rare times that he decided to sleep and didn't just fall asleep while working, and his first comfortable sleep in over thirty years as well, even though he had slept on a couch, seated. He could just be thankful that Bill was out of their lives now, and everyone in the shack was safe from him.

Stanford had had a busy day. He had safeguarded the shack and Stanley's RV by the unicorn hair, mercury and moonstone - Stanley and the kids were going on a road trip -, told the kids about Bill's plans, tried to Bill-proof Dipper's mind but somehow got possessed, and finally, he had done some calculations about the rift before sleeping.

He had come to the conclusion that the rift was constantly pressing its container with a force, but that was not all. The glass containing the rift was not strong enough to be under a constant pressure for so long, and it would cause the rift to literally break itself in a few weeks. Stanford was seriously afraid of this. He needed to do something for it, but he didn't know what. Also, he couldn't leave the shack now. He had to stay and take care of the shack while the rest of the family was gone. He thought he would find a way after Stanley's road trip was over.

This left nothing for him to do downstairs. So he stood up and walked up to the table where the journals and the rift were placed. He picked them up, placed them in his coat pockets – thanks to the many pockets he had – and stepped into the elevator to go upstairs.

As he used his watch to open up the door to the shack, he faced an empty, silent gift shop, just as he expected. But this silence carried memories with it. Memories of when he first moved to Gravity Falls. Memories of when he caught a few of those eye bats in a jar and came back home in ecstasy. Memories of the times he had found fossils of unusual creatures. Stanford remembered all of them at once, but he realized he was not in that house anymore. He was in the Mystery Shack, a place for so-called "paranormal" attractions. The only thing that was left of his house was the lab and the study room. The rest was not his. It was Stanley's. He felt mad at Stanley for turning his house into a tourist trap when he was gone.

But this thought made something else hit his mind. What else had Stanley changed in his house? Stanford had barely seen the gift shop and the TV room and a room that used to be his since he had come back. But his house was bigger, wasn't it? Stanford thought deeply, and decided to look around the rest of his house to see what changes he could spot.

* * *

Not only Stanford found out that his house had totally changed, he also realized that technology had become weirder than the first time he dreamed of Bill.

He had thought about this since the government agent had given him a small piece of plastic and said it contained everything about Stan's case. Stanford thought he would have to take a few floppy disks from them, but it seemed like they had concentrated their data in that drive, or something of the sort.

He found a drive almost like the one the agent had given him in the house. But he never expected what he read on the drive after he looked at it closely. '16 Gigabytes' it read.

He stared at the drive in surprise after reading the text on it. The highest capacity of a floppy disk in his day was eight hundred kilobytes, which meant less than a megabyte. And now there were sixteen gigabyte drives, even smaller than his sixth finger. Now he could see how science had expanded through these three decades that he was gone.

He thought about opening it and seeing what's inside it, how it works and how it can contain that much data. He also wanted to know why one would need sixteen gigabytes of data in a drive. But he decided against it after finding no way to open it up, so he moved on and left the drive right there.

A few minutes later he found a strange, black device which could fit in the palm of his hand, but he had no idea what it was. He looked at the sides of the device to find out about the use of the device, and found a few buttons on the left side and the top. He tried pressing the buttons until the button on top worked and the device glowed bright. This was so unexpected to Stanford he dropped the device on the ground. When he picked it back up, he realized it was just the screen of the device that he didn't notice before, for it was the same color as the rest of the phone.

The screen seemed fascinatingly vivid and colorful to Stanford. He didn't know there were screens that could show the colors this close to their real look. In fact, he was even more surprised that the phone was displaying an actual picture so vividly, it seemed real to him.

The picture was an image of Dipper and Stan's redheaded employee. On the top of the screen was something that seemed to be a digital clock, and in the bottom, he saw a rectangle with a text next to it: "slide to unlock".

 _Slide what? Unlock what?_ Stanford thought confusedly, and started to repeat these questions in his head over and over again. He apparently didn't know anything about touch screens. But though he didn't know what it was he was facing, he knew he will find a way into it, and so he began searching for something to "slide".

After about ten minutes of looking in the sides and the back of the device he didn't know the name to, Stanford thought he was not going to find out how to "slide" what the device asked him to slide. He didn't even know _what_ to slide. He looked at the screen, thinking he was so done with all this.

But something caught his attention.

The button below the photo seemed so much like a three-dimensional shape, not just a rectangle. It seemed almost real …

Stanford found this pretty weird and stared at the button in wonder. After some thought, he decided to touch the button to see if it is real, but as he did so, it _moved._

Stanford's jaw was left open in surprise. All that was on his mind at the moment was just one single word; "How?"

He finally took his own control and decided to touch the button again and see if it moves again or not. And it did.

"Fascinating! This thing works on the touch of my fingers! How could they have possibly invented something like this?" he exclaimed, not knowing these were the first words he'd spoken today.

He finally took the button to the right side of the screen, only to see a number keyboard appear in front of him, saying "enter PIN code." And four squares below it.

 _Great. Another expression I've got to find the meaning of._ Stanford thought, and started his attempt to "decipher" the code by the Atbash cipher, and go on to the other ones if he didn't find the answer.

After finding no answer by any trick, he concluded that it has to be a password of some kind. So he tried a few codes.

But none worked.

After his fifth attempt, a note popped up that said something along the lines of "you've been wrong for five times", "if this happens again, your phone will crash, for security reasons", and …

But he didn't care, the most it could take was six thousand tries, so why worry?

He didn't actually read the note.

He tried a few more times and got a few more notes until the phone actually crashed. The screen was totally black now, and he couldn't turn it on with any button. So he left the phone right where it used to be and left the room, saying "Not my fault this happened."

He actually thought he was so done with his search in his house, not knowing his biggest discovery awaited him somewhere upstairs…

* * *

Stanford opened a door, and heard the very same noise for the thousandth time in the day. He had to fix this issue with the doors, but he didn't know if he could, because all the doors made this noise, and there were many doors in the shack. He wondered how Stanley lived in this house? Had it been him, he would have gone mad.

The old scientist had been looking for new things and changes for almost three hours, and had realized that a lot of rooms had changed functions, and some had finally found a reason to be used. He had never used the attic when he lived here, and the room Stanley used as his bedroom used to be Fiddleford's when he worked with him – Stanford had a habit of sleeping on a couch because of the many all-nighters he pulled.

Deepened in thought, Stanford stepped in the TV room and kept walking aimlessly, remembering the differences he had noticed in the past few hours. It seemed impossible to get used to this house after these many changes. He kept walking until he found himself in front of the stairway.

He had taken a brief look at the rooms upstairs, but he had analyzed everywhere in the first floor perfectly, and didn't seem to have anything else to do. So he decided to go back upstairs, and see what else he would find there.

After he was done with the stairs, he noticed how painful his back was. He was getting old. He had never been like this in the other dimension, maybe because there were ways of healing himself at the nightmare realm. He held his back with one hand, groaning in pain. He had to take a break. But just as he let this thought in his mind, he saw a door entitled "Office".

An office for such a cheap tourist trap seemed weird to Stanford. He knew Stanley made money out of scamming people by telling them fake legends about fake creatures, but this had nothing new for people but rumors. Sure they originated from somewhere, but people would never find out. Then again, why would such a job need an office?

This thought made him more curious. He knew Stanley must be hiding something in the "Office". Stanford opened the door, and faced a familiar room in surprise.

Stan's office used to be the room for things that were broken or things Stanford didn't need. Stanley may have moved the things out of the room and dumped them, but Ford knew Stanley would never dump a single thing when he could make money out of it. Stanford hoped Stanley kept the things somewhere…

And he did.

He caught the old copier he had never used sitting in a corner, collecting dust. A sheet was half covering it. Stanford thought if there was one thing Stanley would throw out, it would be this copier. The first time he wanted to use it, it broke down, and he never got to fix it.

He walked up to it and removed the sheet to see the copier, and noticed how much duct tape was on the thing. Maybe Stanley had fixed it and made it work, if so, he was really grateful. He really wanted to see how he had done it. But he had to find out if it even works.

He wondered how he should test the copier, and remembered that he brought the journals with him. So he pulled the third journal out of his pocket and opened to an unimportant page – the gnomes page - to copy. He put it on the copier and pressed the button that he thought would copy the content.

Stanford waited for something to happen. Then he saw a green-ish ray appear which seemed to be analyzing the content on the pages. The copier shook roughly and an A3 paper came out of it. Stanford looked at the paper. There he saw the entire content about the gnomes which he had written in his journal way too long ago. He picked the paper up in amaze, while he left the journal on the copier.

He stared at the paper for a long time and read every bit of it. It was just like he remembered, and just as clear as the journal itself was. He decided to compare it to the original writings in the journal.

He picked up the journal, but noticed something as he saw the cover of the journal.

That six-fingered hand …

He remembered how he had created it. He had placed his hand on the golden sheet and cut the outline around it. He had _copied_ it.

What if he copied his hand again but this time, on the copier?

All Stanford knew after he did so was he was _running._

 **Author's notes: So, I'd had this idea for quite a long time - since the episode Roadside Attraction aired – and I thought 'Hey, what was Ford doing all along in the shack?' it's kind of weird but I've had the entire plot of this and the next chapter in my mind ever since. But I recently managed to make up a good, complete plot for this idea and write it. And I did, or so I think.**

 **I'd love to hear your opinions on this fanfic, and please tell me if you see any errors, typos, etc. so I can fix it.**

 **By the way, this is my first ever fanfiction, so go easy on me if I'm rusty or anything :)**

 **-H80NP**


	2. Beyond Ford-inary

**Chapter two: Beyond Ford-inary**

Brilliant! Stanford thought about the idea that had just hit his mind. Now that the copier was fixed and worked without a single problem, he could copy anything with it. But he also could copy his hand and the result would be a six-fingered handprint – supposedly. He should have thought of this thirty years ago, when he hadn't broken the copier yet. Now, the said copier was right in front of him and he could use it to copy anything, including his own hand.

Stanford picked up the journal from above the copier. He looked at the hand on the cover of the journal again. He noticed that the handprint on the journal had no fingerprints, and wondered if his handprint copied by the copier is going to have the smaller details such as fingerprints or not. He thought that it must. When it could copy those journal pages just like the actual writings, it has to have the fingerprints, or other details.

 _Only one way to find out._

Stanford placed his hand on the copier, where the journal had been just a few seconds ago. He pressed the button without hesitating even a second, waiting for the result to come out. What could possibly go wrong?

The same green ray appeared, detected the palm of Stanford's hand, and disappeared. But this time, the old scientist could feel it under his hand, which carried a slight heat with it. This felt extremely weird to him, especially the heat. He thought ordinary copiers shouldn't have such heat. It wouldn't make sense.

He shook his head and decided to put the thoughts away and kept his hand on the copier, looking at where the handprint was going to come out of. He saw a piece of paper with the handprint leave the copier, and moved his hand to pick it up. The handprint was just like the one on the journal, though it had the fingerprints copied with the slightest of details. Seeing the handprint amazed him, it was a black and white version of the palm of his hand, looking just like it.

He wondered if he should open it to see what is inside – actually, he had thought the same thing about every single new device he had encountered. So he started to kneel to see where to open it from, not knowing what was going to happen next.

To Stanford's surprise, the paper shook roughly. Stanford let out a yelp as he dropped the A3 paper and watched in terror.

The handprint on the paper started to move, as if it was a living thing trapped in a flat, two dimensional space, trying to reach beyond its white, paper-like boundaries. Stanford found himself staring at the scene of terror, doing nothing but watching as the story unfolded.

The handprint was finally done with trying and actually came out of the paper, leaving a blank space on the main paper shaped like a handprint, while putting an end to its existence as a handprint, becoming an actual _hand_. A six-fingered hand with all of the features of the old scientist's hand was in front of him, and this actually made Stanford calm down.

"Huh, might as well write about this in my journal." Said Stanford, clueless of what danger he was through as he reached for his third journal in his pocket. Soon he caught something _flying_ his direction out of the corner of his eye, and turned to it only to see a hand landing on his face.

"Son of a DORITO!" Stanford screamed as he tried to run away from the hand's direction, but his old limbs and tired legs disappointed him - as they always did. So he ended up with a hand on his face, blocking his vision and squeezing hard, its long nails making it painful for Stanford. _He should have cut his nails in the morning_.

The old scientist whom had just broken his record of not cursing for twenty six years, started yelling curses to his own third hand as he tried pointlessly to get it off of his face, but the grip was tight, and this left Stanford disappointed, leaving him only two ways to get rid of the hand: Try his hardest, or _run_.

* * *

He had chosen to run.

He could barely see, but he didn't have another choice, trying to get the hand off of his face would be a waste of energy.

Stanford had no idea how the hand could get that much of energy, for it wouldn't get tired. It just kept the grip as tight as it could and never let the grip loose. Stanford was just running, hoping he could suddenly come through something that would let him get rid of the hand from hell.

All Stanford could see was through the gap between the fingers of the hand through his left eye, but with the left lens of his glasses broken, he couldn't see much, because the crack was right on the spot that he could see from. He had to be grateful he didn't have to just drift around blindly.

He barely saw the stairway in front of him, the same one as the one he had used to come upstairs by. He had no choice but to take it, hesitating would only make things worse. So he ran downstairs desperately, hoping he wouldn't fall off the stairs. So he ran down them as carefully as he could, making it to the first floor.

The old scientist kept running as soon as he was in the first floor. He was getting more and more hopeless and the grip was getting tighter. He thought he couldn't stand it anymore, so he reached for the hand on his face to get it off, but this blocked his sight completely. He regretted it instantly, but before he could do anything, he ran into something and fell on the ground painfully.

Stanford let out a groan and started to get up, only to have something fall on his head – Hopefully the hand was still on his face so he wouldn't be hurt. Falling back down, the old scientist started to whisper curses under his breath, but soon, he felt his face get… wet.

He shook his head in shock and started to get up. When he was back on his feet, he cleaned his face with his hand. Only to realize that there was something missing from his face.

The hand!

Stanford opened his eyes and found out that he can see perfectly fine, and that he was in the kitchen and that he had run into the fridge. He looked around for the hand not to let it fly back to his face again. He found it on the floor, but it was floating around in a pool of white liquid – apparently milk – and was _melting_ in it.

"whoa!" Stanford exclaimed as he watched the hand dissolve. He then noticed a bottle of milk a few inches away from where the hand had been destroyed, guessing it had fallen from above the fridge when he ran into it. He let out a chuckle at his luck and looked around to find the sink.

"ahh, perfect!" he said as he found what he was looking for, and decided he could wash his face in it.

When he was done, he headed upstairs, where a new subject for a new entry in his third journal awaited him.

 _The copier_.

 **Author's notes: This chapter was a little bit shorter, but I didn't want to write more from the plot so I'd end the story right here.**

 **Thanks to all of you who reviewed and told me what you think! Speaking of reviews, please review for this chapter too, it brightens my day a whole lot! :)**

 **By the way, I know I was late at updating and stuff. School … *sigh***

 **-H80NP**


	3. The Curiosity Awakens

**Chapter Three: The Curiosity Awakens**

 **Author's Notes: No, this is NOT a Star Wars reference. :)))**

 **Sorry about the late updates anyway, weird how I can't write when I'm on a break. :|**

 **Anyways, enjoy this chapter!**

 _Case #164_

 _Stanley's Copier (A.K.A Spirit Copier)_

 _The room I had been keeping my useless tools in is now my twin brother's office, and I came in, only to find out that he has kept my broken copier and even better, fixed it. I used it, and it worked on the journal pages, but not on my hand…_

Stanford stopped to insert a document to the page, so he put the journal on the table and started looking for the paper that was going to be his proof to what happened mere minutes ago.

He found it next to the copier, untouched. It was the paper which his handprint was printed on, but tragically didn't stay there and left a blank space – Which was hopefully shaped like a hand. He folded the A3 paper until it was the size he wanted it to be. "Now that's good" the old scientist said and picked some duct-tape to stick on the folded paper. When he was done, he picked up the journal again and started writing again.

 _I copied my hand hoping to get a handprint, which I did, but it didn't stay that way for long. After it was copied, the handprint sneaked out of the paper and became an actual, living HAND…_

Stanford started drawing something that was supposed to be the image of the hand melting in the kitchen, a bottle pouring on a six fingered hand and the hand being dissolved. Then, he started to write about what happened in capital letters.

… _IT MELTED BY MILK! HOW IS IT POSSIBLE?_

Suddenly, something hit his mind.

What did milk have that made it melt the copied hand so easily? What else would melt such copied body parts? Acid or alkaline? Or milk was the only thing capable of doing such a thing? How was he even sure it was _milk_ that melted the hand? It could have been expired, or some other liquid…

Stanford deepened in thought as the wave of questions passed through his mind and made him more and more curious, but he decided he wouldn't accomplish a single thing with thinking. He knew he wouldn't be able to give up without finding the answer to all of those questions, or his name wasn't Stanford Filbrik Pines.

* * *

"So, what have we got here?" Stanford said as he came in the kitchen, trying not to step in the puddle of – Supposedly – milk. Although the puddle seemed smaller than before, probably because it had sank in the wooden floor. He looked around the kitchen to find the bottle the "Milk" must have been in, and found it a bit above the puddle, so he knelt down and picked up the bottle. The bottle said "milk", but it smelled more acidic than it should have, so he doubted it to be expired. The old scientist started analyzing the bottle, hoping to find a clue, which he did.

He found the expiration date on the back of the bottle. "7/13/2012" it read – although Stanford had returned from the other dimension for almost three weeks and he had been seeing the date everyday ever since, he still wasn't used to seeing the date with the year two thousand-something in it.

He looked at his watch for the date, and seeing "8/22/12" on his watch, he realized that the milk was way too much more than expired, which made it a greatly strong acid. He wondered how he didn't realize it when the milk poured on his face.

But what he needed now was to know _how strong_ this acid was. So he reached into one of the pockets of his coat, hoping to find what he was looking for, which he did.

The pH Indicator.

He always carried it in his coat because he needed it for new discoveries in the multi-verse. He first used it when he wanted to see how a creature's system works, and realizing its blood was acidic when he accidentally poured a drop of indicator on the sample and it turned from violet to red – he realized it because that thing had yellow blood. Although it ruined the process of sampling the unlucky creature's blood and some of it spilled on his own hand, it let him go further in finding the differences between it and any other creature – on earth of course.

The memories of that horrible experiment were suddenly relived in his head, making him smile at how his stupidity had served him throughout his life. He chuckled at the memory and finally got down to business.

He picked up one of the papers and put it inside the puddle of milk and waited for it to change colors. After few minutes, he saw the color of the paper turn from green to an orange-ish red. Matching it with the pH measure chart, the pH was between two and three – a strong acid, the same as he had thought. Stanford noted to himself to remember the number two and a half. Then, he stuffed the pH indicator as well as the used one back in his pocket and went for the next step of his work.

He opened the door to the fridge.

The old scientist wiped his forehead as he held his painful back with a grimace on his face. He had been weakened to the point that even the smallest of tasks would give him a painful backache, but with all the monsters and demons he had fought in the past thirty years, there was no wonder. He could only do no hard work in the next thirty years of his life.

Despite all of the tricks he had done to him and deals he had not held up to his own side in, Bill had told him one thing he still appreciated. He had very indirectly told him the age and cause of his death when he first dreamed of him.

He pulled his third journal out and started drawing a chart and wrote in its first column: "Expired Milk" and wrote "pH=2.5" in the next box. Then, he moved on to the next column, looking at the table to make sure he was writing the correct ingredient.

On the table he saw a can of Pitt Cola, a bottle of not expired milk, a cup of water and some shampoo. This could only mean one thing.

 _Experiment!_

He had thought about moving the copier to his own lab, so Stanley's office would be safe, but with the backache spreading pain across his back, he had had to leave it for when he had someone to help him, so he had to start the experiment inside Stanley's office and clean the room up after he was done.

The plan was to know whether acids or alkalis can melt the copied body parts. He was going to make more hands, trap them inside a bowl – which must be filled with one of the ingredients – and see if it melts. Then, he would check the results inside the chart he was drawing, and move on to the next ingredient.

He already had his answer with the most acidic liquid in the list. The expired milk had already gotten the check. Now, it was the turn for the second strong acid in the list; the can of soda.

He pulled out the indicator from his pocket to find the exact pH of the soda, and opened up the can of Pitt Cola. He put the paper inside the can of soda, waited for a minute and pulled it back out. The color of the indicator sheet was now a bright orange, more orange-ish than the color it made for the expired milk, which meant a weaker acid. Matching it with the pH chart, he decided the pH was a bit more than three. So he wrote "pH=3" inside his journal in front of the soda. Then, it was the time to test it.

He picked up the can of soda and poured it inside the bowl on the table. Although he didn't expect it to create so much foam after he poured it in the bowl as if it was water.

"Whoa!" yelled Stanford, jumping a few steps back, while keeping the can of soda inside the grip of his hand, staring at the bowl in shock, remembering how sodas worked. "Damn this memory I have!" he murmured, shock turning to embarrassment – not that anybody was seeing him. He walked to the table again, seeing that the huge foam had vanished. Heaving a sigh of relief, and started pouring the rest of the can inside the bowl, but this time, gently.

"easy… , _easy…_ " he whispered, pouring all of the soda carefully. When he was done, he picked it up, going to where the Spirit Copier– also known as his new subject for an entry in his journal which Dipper might be extremely excited about and rattle on about for hours – was. He had to admit, he would have no idea what to do if dipper found out about this "Spirit Copier"

He decided that those thoughts can wait. As far as he knew, the road trip would be going until at least the night, but most likely, the next day.

He put the bowl down on the safe next to the copier to copy his hand once again. He placed his hand on the copier and pressed the button with the other hand. After going through the same process as before, he picked up the bowl instantly, to melt the hand before it _flew_ on his face again.

Holding the bowl in his hand, the old scientist waited for the paper with the hand inside to come out. As the paper appeared, he tensed up a bit more, feeling anxious.

 _What if I can't catch it in time? What if it doesn't melt? What if it actually jumps on my head again? What if…_

A thousand What if thoughts passed his mind, so Stanford didn't notice that the hand had already come out of the paper and was flying his direction again. Luckily he caught it mid-air, throwing the bowl its way, the soda spilling out and covering the hand in itself. Stanford simply didn't notice when the bowl broke, only caring about the hand that was mid-air. He sneaked out of its way and let it fall on the floor, and keep _melting_.

As soon as he knew the soda was melting the hand, he picked up his journal from where it was, and opened it to the page with the chart in. he found the column for soda and checked it.

"Okay, Stanford, be more careful with the milk." Stanford murmured, talking to himself. He knew there would be no mistakes next time. He looked around to find where he _left_ the bowl. But all he found was pieces of crystal, broken and spread at the few feet around it. Stanford face palmed.

But remembering that those were his brother's property, not his, made him smile. Stanley absolutely deserved it – not that he would even care.

But this didn't deny the fact that Stanford needed a new bowl.

* * *

 _Expired milk | pH=2.5| check_

 _Soda | pH=3 | check_

 _Milk (Fresh) | pH=5.5 | check_

 _Water | pH= (Obviously) 7 | check_

 _Shampoo | pH=9 |_

Stanford was almost done with the experiment since he had tested all of the ingredients – except for one. He still had to test the shampoo, which was the only alkali he had on his list. So he absolutely needed to examine the hand with the shampoo too, or his experiment wouldn't have a full conclusion.

By far, he had concluded that any acid can melt such body parts, as well as water – neutral. But he needed to know if alkalis would have the same impact or not. He assumed it was likely that the shampoo would do nothing, so he had to have one more solution just in case the hand refused to melt. So, he had picked up a can of soda when he went downstairs for the last time to take another bowl – yes. He had broken another bowl during the experiments – he picked up a can of soda as well. He checked one of his many pockets just to make sure the can of the – most likely – savior of his life in mere minutes later was there, which it was.

The old scientist picked up the shampoo, hung it upside down above the not used bowl, and squeezed it. As soon as all of the shampoo was drained out of its place, Stanford put it back on the table and picked up the bowl to start up his work.

He did the exact same as he had done for all the other examinations. He put the bowl next to the copier and placed his hand on the copier and copied it. He picked up the bowl afterwards and waited for the paper with the hand inside come out. Then, he waited for the hand to become real, and just as it did, he mercilessly trapped it inside the bowl full of shampoo, waiting for something to happen. The only difference was that he had his can of soda in his hand, sweating nervously.

He was going to remove the bowl to see what was going on beneath – he couldn't see anything since a thin layer of shampoo had covered the bowl. So he opened up his can of Pitt, and picked up the bowl.

And that was when the hand sneaked out of its place covered by a layer of shampoo, and the old scientist screamed while looking away, curiosity turning to terror and poured all of the soda on the hand.

And the shampoo, of course.

Then he looked down, only to see what masterpiece he had just created, and to realize messing with Bill was not his worst mistake… _anymore_ …

The hand was safe and sound, but there was a huge layer of pink-colored foam around it which rose higher every second, and a deadly, poisonous smell filled the room, wordlessly shouting at Stanford: " _Leave!_ "

Stanford ran to the door and left the room as quick as his weak legs could carry him, and slammed the door shut in complete terror. Huffing and gasping, he started thinking about what he had just caused to happen. Suddenly, realization hit him. He had just mixed an acid and an alkali together, and for the sake of his bad luck, they created a chemical reaction, which would cause it to create chemical salts, which were rarely non-poisonous. The worst part was, the hand was still safe and not hurt at all. He could only hope that hand to somehow melt in there, because otherwise…

Otherwise he would need something to melt the hand by…

Suddenly, the old scientist had a eureka moment.

* * *

Stanford was in his lab, looking for what he needed. He wanted to go inside the room, get rid of the hand, and somehow, not be affected by the poisonous air inside the room. This last part was the hardest.

Luckily he had anything he would need with a scientific experiment inside his lab somewhere. So he looked inside one of the drawers of the controller of the former "Portal". In the drawer were a few masks, each for a different task, a small tank of oxygen and a pair of yellow, six fingered gloves, just what he needed.

He wanted to avoid breathing in the polluted air of the office, so he needed a mask. He also needed a source to breathe clean air from, which would be an oxygen tank, and taking a pair of gloves wasn't going to do him any bad, was it? So he put on the mask, placed the oxygen tank beneath his coat and put on the gloves as well.

He only needed to get rid of the hand somehow, and the solution seemed difficult, yet the only one. He needed to take some water, because there was no other liquid less reactionary than water, so water was the only safe option. But if the water was mixed with the shampoo that might still be on the hand, he would need more water, because a mixture of shampoo and water wouldn't cause the hand any damage. So, he needed a _lot_ of water.

That was a hard thing to figure out a way to.

* * *

The old scientist was carrying a bucket full of water while opening a few of the windows. He needed the poisonous air to get out of the house, and what was better than opened windows? Absolutely nothing that he could think of.

He then headed to the office to clear the mess he had created – well, some of it. Because if he was going to clean the entire room, his back would kill him from pain.

He checked all of the accessories he had with him. The oxygen tank needed to be connected to his mask properly, so he checked the connection. His mask had to perfectly cover his face to block out all the polluted air, so he tightened the mask on his face. And the gloves were not such an important detail. His bucket was full of water, he knew what to do, and the windows were ready to get him rid of the cause of the chemical reaction happened earlier. Stanford Pines was totally ready to go in and get to work.

He opened the door and saw that the signs of the reaction – such as foam and gas – had all gone away, except for one thing; the chemical salt that was somewhere on the floor, but he needed to find the goddamn hand first.

He spotted it on the wall, aimlessly climbing up the ceiling. He waited for it to fall, so he could melt it safer. At least he was sure the hand would do no damage if it jumped on his face.

The hand fell down on the back of its palm. Stanford suddenly spilled all of the water on the hand and watched it dissolve with a smirk of victory on his face, hidden beneath the mask he had on. He had finished the biggest part of his job!

He remembered of the reason that hand was there at the first place. He had totally forgotten about the experiment he had done, as well as the fact that he had not written down anything about the shampoo and if it actually worked on the hand or not. So he looked around for his journal, and found it on the safe next to the copier, looking slightly wet.

He picked it up and opened it to the page with the chart, marking a cross in front of the shampoo.

His experiment was now finished.

Now, he had to clean the room and take the salt that had been created to his lab and examine it, but he knew that cleaning the room was the hard part.

There were broken pieces of the two bowls he broke around the room, the floor was sticky and wet, the foam and goo were still seen around the room, and he needed to clean them all up, but his back started aching, as if to beg him not to.

"I wish there was an easier way of cleaning this mess." He said to himself while rubbing his back in slight pain. Then a light bulb popped up in his head.

An easier way…

What could the "easier way" be?

He suddenly knew the answer.

* * *

 **Author's notes: So, these last few days have been kind of busy for me. That is why I couldn't be writing as much as possible, but I spent the last day entirely on writing this chapter, and finished it today. I made it longer so it could make up for the last chapter – or filler as "RandomReader" said :D – and I'm sort of glad it's finally done.**

 **I know the next chapter is going to be fun to write so, hopefully, I'll write it a bit quicker. But the next month is gonna be tough for me because this semester is way too important. I need to study real hard. I hate it.**

 **Anyways, leave reviews this time too! It brightens my day so much! And I hope you enjoyed reading this chapter.**

 **-H80NP**


	4. The Interruption

**Chapter Four: The Interruption**

 **Author's notes: Before I forget (as I did back at the second and third chapter), here's the guest review responses.**

 **RandomReader: "if only he knew"… :))))**

 **Well of course Ford would be the kind of a person to write everything straightforward and short – A.K.A scientistic. Me? I'm still me :) but I know I made it less long winded and descriptive, although I don't know how. :|**

 **The reason I didn't let (!) the shampoo melt the paper was mostly because I needed Stanford to make a mess. (Why? You'll see ;))) ) Also, it might as well be because there's already blood inside the hand (most likely) and blood is alkaline, so it just wouldn't make any sense if the shampoo affected it in any way.**

 **Anyways, enjoy this chapter everyone! Exactly three thousand words in this chapter!**

* * *

The old scientist walked to the stairway as soon as he had an epiphany. He knew this idea was not going to be left in his mess of a mind, so he was going to make it happen as soon as possible, so he needed to modify the "Spirit Copier" before he fulfilled his thought, and he obviously needed some tools.

He looked at the room once again before going downstairs, realizing that a broom was also needed. He couldn't work on the copier in such mess. Noting to take a broom with himself as well, he walked down the stairs as fast as his old limbs would carry him. But a feeling made him stop in the middle of the stairs.

 _He felt like he was not alone anymore._

He stopped and listened to the ceiling for any clue to another person's presence. After a few minutes of listening and dealing with questions rising in his mind, his fears were confirmed.

He heard footsteps from distance, but the way it sounded made it obvious that it was inside the shack, not outside of it. His mind started racing, bringing up questions such as "What could this possibly mean?" "Does it mean someone else is here?" "Who could possibly be here at this time? Stanley said he'd be back in two days, not one!" "Can it be a tourist? No, I made sure the sign is closed, and the door is locked. So, how?" "Can this possibly mean _Bill is here_?!"

As the last question came up in his mind, he found his mind shut down and his heart racing instead of his mind. Stanford tried to push the thought away, finding explanations that this could not be Bill, but he may have not done the Bill-proofing perfectly, and Bill would never lose such opportunity to…

The footsteps were gone.

Stanford was relieved at once, but he knew this was not necessarily a good sign, so he didn't let his guard down and sneaked to the hallway.

Nothing.

The old scientist was pretty sure that there actually weren't any footsteps, but his paranoia wouldn't let him confirm that completely, not yet.

Stanford knew where the first place Bill would go was, so he tip-toed quietly to the gift shop, where a hidden door awaited him… _and Bill_.

Bill was absolutely looking for the rift, so he would go to the place where it was kept. And what place was better than the underground lab? Nowhere was. Besides, there were many interesting things in the underground lab, so why not see them up close?

The old scientist actually left the rift at the study, but he knew fully well that the first place Bill would check after the lab would be the study, and even if he didn't, he needed to get rid of the floating Dorito in his house – and another person's body.

As he thought, he got to the vending machine. Before going inside, he took a look at the floor for any footprints leading to the vending machine, and found none, which meant even if he was anywhere near, he hadn't been to the underground lab. This was a good sign, so he sighed in complete relief and pressed the button on his watch. The vending machine rotated and revealed the secret walkway. He stepped inside and closed the door behind him.

He was not aware of the presence of a confused and curious soul whom had heard his relieved breath and was looking for the source of it.

"Hello? Who is this?"

* * *

"This is Major Tom to ground control… I'm stepping through the door… and I'm floating in the most peculiar way…" Came the voice of an old man, singing along to an old song being played by an even older gramophone in his lab. He had actually looked everywhere in the lab and study to see if there was anyone in there. Finding no one, he came to his lab for the tools, and had started to clean some of his old things in the meantime, a decision which he did not regret making.

He had found some extremely valuable – and old – things sitting in the corner of his lab; his old gramophone and a few audio disks from the seventies and early eighties. Now, he was sitting down on a chair, listening to the one song that made him want to be an astronaut for the first time in his life. A wish which he had achieved even more than, but never enjoyed.

He remembered the first time he heard this song vividly. He was ten when this song came on the radio and although he didn't understand the lyrics completely, he got the idea and it got him thinking about how it was like to be in space and see the earth from more than a thousand miles.

A few years later, he found this song for sale and purchased it right away, headed home and played it on his father's gramophone – he never owned more than three records, including this one. And now, here he was, listening to the same song after over thirty five years of not hearing it. He felt back at his childhood, sketching a spaceship very poorly, thinking it was a masterpiece, thinking about his older self in some sort of a spacecraft, looking at his home in delight, but this time, from a hundred thousand miles away.

"Though I'm past a hundred thousand miles, I'm feeling very still… and I think my spaceship knows which way to go…" Stanford kept singing as the last verse of the song began. After the tone faded to nothingness peacefully, he stood up and placed the record back at its place, as well as the gramophone. As he did so, he wondered if any of these old artists were still in style, or even alive. He would have been frustrated if he ever got a negative answer.

He pushed the thoughts away. He had already spent enough time in the lab, and now he needed to take the tools upstairs.

He looked around the lab, looking for his tools when he found a large piece of shiny crystal. He instantly knew what it was, and he face palmed.

"I'm such a fool."

* * *

A metallic sound and the hidden door opened noisily. An old man carrying a broom stepped outside the walkway behind the vending machine. Stanford closed the door behind him, making an even louder noise, enough to attract someone's attention…

"Hello?" Stanford almost panicked as he heard a voice call from somewhere inside the house.

This made all his fears come back. What if Bill was actually here? What should he do?

Stanford calmed himself down and began to think of a solution. First, he needed to find the owner of the voice and make sure they are not possessed by Bill. The second part was easy.

He searched his pockets for a flashlight he always carried. After he found it in the depths of his pockets, he pulled it out, thumb on the button, ready for anything that awaited him.

He heard footsteps coming closer, making him tense up. He looked at where the footsteps came from: at the kitchen.

"Huh, weird, it's the second time I'm hearing this sound." Stanford heard the same voice mutter to themself in a lower voice, but this time, the figure sounded less distant. He was ready to do what he had planned, all he needed was for the figure to come in his sight.

The footsteps were growing closer, and he was seeing the shadow of the person, and only a second after, the figure itself appeared – all that Stanford needed to see. Stanford didn't pay any attention to the looks of the figure and jumped on them, tugging them to the ground.

"AAAAAAAH! What the FUCK?!" The trapped figure yelled and started to move furiously, trying to get free of the old, aggressive old man's grip.

Stanford, keeping his calm, turned the flashlight straight in the figure's eyes, only to catch no unusual sign in them. All he saw was a pair of emerald green eyes, with completely rounded pupils.

Frustrated, Stanford stood up as he let the unlucky person go, but caught himself in a deadly, tightening grip around his throat.

Now, Stanford could see the figure better, because she was right in front of him, holding his throat aggressively. He saw a thin but powerful redheaded teenager in front of him, who was tightening her grip to a choking level. The old man instantly recognized her.

She was Stanley's employee.

"YOU!" she growled in anger. "You tell me what the Fuck all that was, or I'll…" she stopped when she realized who she was going to choke to death.

"Wait, What?" she said in confusion, her grip noticeably loosening.

Stanford found the grip gone, and started to gasp for air and breathe again.

"I… uh… thought you left with… uh… Stan…"

Stanford pointed at himself while unable to talk, making her realize that he needed a moment to catch his breath.

"Uh… Okay…" The lanky teenager said while scratching her neck in embarrassment.

After catching his breath, Stanford cleared his throat to speak.

"Hi, Uh…" Stanford started awkwardly, realizing he didn't know her name.

"Wendy. Wendy Corduroy." Wendy said, a smile forming on her face.

"Wendy. Wait…" Stanford paused as he remembered something about the name. "Was your father a lumberjack?" Stanford asked.

"Oh, well… he still is, but yeah. How'd you know?"

"I think he built my house, which is now the Mystery Shack." He said the name "Mystery Shack" with complete disrespect. Wendy, though, was quite surprised.

"Wait, like, HE built this place?... Wow…" Wendy exclaimed.

"Yes, but that doesn't matter, Sorry for what happened, I just had to make sure of something." Stanford said, apologizing half-heartedly.

"No prob. Make sure about what?" Wendy said, apparently pleased to hear what his boss' brother had to say. This was not what Stanford had expected, and he was not glad about it at all. He tried to find an excuse.

"It's a bit long, you might yawn at the middle, so, I think you should – "

"Nah, just go on man..." Wendy said in a laid back way of speaking, but quickly corrected herself. "I mean, Mr. Pines… The Second?" Wendy said, sounding unsure.

"I'm the older twin." Stanford said shortly.

"Oh, so… Mr. Pines The First?" Wendy said, now smiling in amuse, which made Stanford smile as well.

"Just call me Ford." Stanford said smiling, making Wendy laugh.

"Okay… can you tell me what all that was about? Remember, I've been on many adventures with Dipper and Mabel, I've seen your bunker, fought a shapeshifter monster, dealt with the society of the Blind Eye, broken into a hunted convenient store, so don't hide stuff from me."

Stanford was taken aback. He never expected this, he thought Wendy had stayed completely out of the paranormal. Now, he didn't have any excuses.

"Okay, I'll just keep it short. Remember yesterday when you and Mabel took some unicorn hair?"

Stanford said, receiving a nod. "Yeah, 'Cause you needed it for something…"

* * *

"…So I doubted that you were possessed and I checked your pupils just to be sure. That's all." Stanford finished explaining after an hour. Wendy stared at the old man in confusion. She had understood everything Stanford had told, but although she had seen many paranormal creatures with the young twins, it seemed too weird to be real.

She had been explained about the demons, their realm, and the one demon that had a huge appetite to conquer one specific dimension: theirs. Stanford kept everything about the rift to himself though, he knew that these details were so much to be shared with Wendy when even Mabel didn't know about them.

"Uh, Okay… I mean, it's kinda a bit _too_ weird." Wendy said. Now, it was the old scientist's turn to ask Wendy something.

"So, why are _you_ here? Shouldn't you have today off?" Stanford asked, snapping Wendy back to reality from her thoughts. "Oh, Me? Nothing, just Stan making me restock the merch in the gift shop." Wendy said, sounding annoyed. "I mean, No offense, but your brother's the worst boss _ever_." She added.

"Looking around the place, I can see that. I can't believe I used to live in this junkyard of a house." Stanford confessed, then remembered that he, himself, had some cleaning up to do upstairs, so he picked up the broom. "I have some work to do, good luck, uh…" He thought for a moment. "…Wendy." And he walked to the stairway upstairs.

"Wait, Ford." Wendy called, making Stanford stop. "Yes?"

"What's the broom for?" she asked, almost knowing her answer.

"I lost control of one of my experiments in Stan's office and now I have to clean the mess up." Stanford responded, saying exactly what the redhead wanted to hear.

"Need any help?" Wendy said, now wearing a casual smile, making Stanford surprised. The old man never expected to hear Wendy offer him any help.

"Thanks Wendy, but I think it's a bit hard, so I'll just do it on my…" He said, but was stopped by the backache suddenly rising without any warning. He held his back with a grimace, groaning.

"Hey, you alright Ford?" Wendy asked worriedly, taking the broom from him. Knowing that the old scientist had been to countless different dimensions – she didn't know the details of course – she was afraid he would brake some part of his own body. Stanford barely managed to speak, half groaning. "Yes, I'm fine. I just need to sit down for a moment."

"Okay, sit down. I'll do the cleaning for ya, 'kay?" Wendy said and walked upstairs with the broom in hand. She found the office in no time and entered, but was surprised when she saw what was upon her.

"Come to think of it, Ford was kinda right…" and she started cleaning the disgusting, pink mixture of milk, soda, water, shampoo and broken crystal.

* * *

Stanford Pines sat behind the cashier with a sore neck, waiting for the backache to go. Holding his back he wondered what Wendy thought when she saw the mess he had created. He thought she must have freaked out.

As soon as the soreness at his back was gone, Stanford stood up and walked around just to make sure his back was completely fine. Feeling no pain at all, he smiled and began to walk upstairs, when something caught his attention.

He suddenly noticed the vending machine at the corner of the gift shop, but this time, he wondered about it in a different way. He realized he had never used the vending machine for its actual purpose. To get snacks or drinks.

Back in his day, vending machines were seriously rare and as far as he was concerned, if any store had one vending machine, the owners were considered rich and successful. But now, seeing his own brother have one of these devices, he knew that they must have gotten pretty much cheaper and more accessible than before or, his brother was pretty wealthy – which was not possible to even imagine. Either way, the old scientist had never used one.

He checked his pockets for some nickels or pennies. Finding a few coins, he stepped to the vending machine, inserted a coin and looked through the glass to choose something. Deciding to have a can of soda, he pressed the code to it on the machine – A, 2, 1 – and waited for his can of soda to arrive. The drink soon fell out of the machine and Stanford picked it up, taking a sip.

In the middle of his peaceful drinking, he heard something strange. The old man stopped and cleared his ear, then listened again, only to hear nothing.

He shrugged and went back to drinking, but the same sound came again, making him stop. This time, he could hear a constant, muffled scream coming from somewhere… _upstairs._

* * *

 **Author's Notes: Cliffhangers! :))**

 **So, what do you think?**

 **I actually wanted to write more in this chapter, but it got too long to be just one chapter, so I didn't write the rest.**

 **And I know I was kind of late at updating, but I was busy studying these last few weeks so… yeah.**

 **And about the song Ford played and sang to, it's called Space Oddity by David Bowie (Rest in peace) and it IS an old song (1969). And the reason I mentioned Stanford wondering whether he's still alive is that he passed in early January this year – I know it's weird of Ford but he's heard it in his childhood, so he has a deep love for it. Also, such a song completely suits an old man's taste :) you know, the Beatles, Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Old stuff (Which I personally like as well.)**

 **And please don't forget to tell me any errors, typos, etc. in the reviews. Also, tell me what you think!**

 **-H80NP**


	5. Birth of a Hero

**Chapter Five: Birth of a Hero**

 **Author's Notes: I swear the last chapter was freaking cursed! Not a single review. Holy crap.**

 **It's not all that bad though. I've been quite busy myself. And maybe I updated at a bad time.**

 **And let me note that I won't be updating in about three weeks, because finals. :|**

 **Anyways, enjoy!**

Wendy had freaked out by the mess of an office upon her. She had never expected anything close to what she was witnessing. The floor was entirely covered with a pink fluid which had spread a strong and acidic scent in the office. There were broken pieces of crystal here and there, and looking around the room, she noticed that some of the drawers and cases were covered in pink liquid as well. The teen shock her head and began to clean the room, wearing a grossed-out expression on her face.

It didn't take her long to realize that not only a broom was enough to clean up the old scientist's handiwork. "Oh, Crap." She muttered to herself in frustration. "I mean, who the hell would take only a broom to clean _this?_ " She added and leaned back against something that happened to be behind her. Sighing, she wiped her brow clean from the sweat, which made her feel better, but it didn't last long.

She noticed that her back was suddenly feeling wet… and uncomfortably sticky. She turned around to see what was causing the unpleasant feeling, only to realize that she had been leaning against a copier, which was, unfortunately, not as clean as she expected it to be – in fact, it appeared as if the pink goo had originated from the copier.

"Ew!" She yelped in disgust and took a few steps back, which led to her slipping on the fluid and falling on the floor ungracefully. She yelled as she fell down. And then, she stood up groaning, knowing the day was not her lucky day.

"Wait." Wendy said as she realized what exactly she had been leaning on. She stepped up to it and analyzed the thing, only to make sure he was not wrong. "Does Stan still keep this old thing?"

* * *

About a minute later, a worried Stanford was rushing upstairs, the can of soda still in his hand. He had heard a muffled scream from upstairs, and knowing that Wendy was up there in the office, he knew this could not possibly mean anything good and any second wasted could be trouble. The old scientist had no guess what exactly was going on upstairs, which made him even more worried.

Huffing, he finished climbing the stairs and soon was in front of the office door, but didn't go inside the office, because someone – something – was banging on the door. A second later, the door opened, revealing Wendy, but Stanford noticed something wrong with her.

The unlucky teen was entirely covered in pink goo – the same liquid that was made during the incident – and seemed grossed out, but she also seemed horrified. The old scientist realized the goo was not the only thing out of the ordinary with her.

Wendy was struggling hard against something Stanford couldn't see, but he could perfectly guess what was going on.

Wendy turned around to reveal the old scientist a disembodied arm holding her throat, which confirmed all he had guessed. Luckily the old scientist had been drinking soda before he came upstairs. He looked at his right hand, in which he was holding his can of soda. "Don't worry Wendy, I know how to get rid of this." The old scientist said calmly as he hung the can of pit soda upside down. the drink poured straight on the arm and melted it, just as Stanford had expected.

Wendy yelled when she felt more liquid spilling on her, but with every second passing by, the grip of the arm loosened and was gone within a minute. The teen stood up in surprise and looked around to see where the arm had gone.

"You won't find it Wendy." Stanford said.

"What?"

"The soda destroyed the arm, because it's made out of paper." Stanford explained shortly.

"So, you know about the copier? How does it do that?" Wendy asked, both curiously and confusedly.

"I'll explain later. I think you need to go home and take a rest. You've been through enough today."

Wendy never liked to be ordered into something, but she really did need to go home. "Okay, then."

"And, uh…" The old scientist paused for a moment to think. "What was your name again?" He asked. Wendy smiled at Stanford's weak short-term memory. "Wendy." She said.

"Right. Wendy, keep this to yourself. I doubt the kids would want to hear about this." He added. She nodded and walked to the stairs, but stopped. "Ford, have you seen my phone in here? I think I've left it here from yesterday." She asked the old scientist. Stanford remembered the phone he had found, crashed and left. "I think I have. Is it a Black, large phone?" He said, recalling the looks of the phone.

"Yeah, where'd you find it?" Wendy asked.

"In the room next to the kitchen, I suppose."

"Alright. Thanks Ford." Wendy said and walked down the stairs.

"Goodbye, uh…" Stanford stopped again, forgetting the name. Wendy couldn't hold in her laughter anymore. "It's Wendy." She repeated her name for the umpteenth time.

"Riiiight. Wendy." Stanford said dryly. "Goodbye."

Wendy walked down the stairs, laughing maniacally. Stanford waited for the teen to leave. As soon as he heard the sound of the doorbell, he opened the door to his brother's office.

 _Time to work._

He thought to himself as he picked up the broom.

* * *

Stanford didn't always clean rooms up, but when he did, he did it perfectly. Stanley's office was no exception. That was why he went downstairs a few times to take things he needed for the cleaning.

He needed to find a way to get the liquid out of the office, but there was no bathroom in the office, and if he wanted to take the fluid to a bathroom, he needed to take it a long distance in the hallway, and that was not what he wanted to do – he didn't want a slippery hallway. He needed to get it out of the entire house, and that had only one proper way – the window.

Lucky for the old scientist, his brother's office did have a window, but there was a shade, which added to his work. He needed to remove the shade to get the fluid out of the house, so he took a look at where the shade was connected to.

In a few minutes the shade had been removed, but Stanford didn't find a clean place to leave the shade at, so he put it on the desk, which was _relatively_ clean. Stanford didn't care about the small amount of fluid on the desk. The shade shouldn't be so important for Stanley.

The old scientist opened the window and was surprised by how pleasant breathing fresh air was compared to the polluted air inside the office. He sighed in relief of the musty smell inside the room and let the air come in.

After a few minutes, Stanford set down to business and thought of a way to lead the fluid to the border of the window. It was a tough task for him, because he had no idea how to lead fluid to a higher place with what he had in his possession at the moment. He needed to sit down and think.

He was almost giving up when he found a picture in one of the drawers of his brother's desk. It was a simple picture of a nine-year-old Stanley doing his favorite thing in the parks; climbing the slides backwards.

The old scientist chuckled at his memories rushing to his mind. He could never guess how many times Stanley had done this. He once broke his arm because another kid slid down when he was climbing it up.

Stanford shook his head and got back to thinking of a way to get the fluid to the window border, but the thoughts of the slide wouldn't leave his mind.

Suddenly, an idea came to him, an idea which he had the perfect material to fulfill. He snapped his fingers as he walked to the stairs. Although this might give him a backache, Stanford knew it would be absolutely worthy.

.

"AAAaaah ! My back!" Stanford yelled as he finished climbing the stairs and dropped what he was carrying.

He had gone to his underground lab to pick up something he needed and back. He had expected the backache, but it was so much for him to stand. He had to sit down a moment and take a break. He knew that it wouldn't take long for the soreness to leave.

When he felt better, he stood up and picked up the heavy thing again. He needed it to be in its proper place, which was beside the window.

He entered the office and walked to the window while carrying the heavy thing. The window was left open, which made his work easier. The old scientist placed one side of the heavy thing on the bottom of the window border. He then took a step back to look at his work.

He had taken one of the rectangular parts of the outer cover of the portal, which was made of an unknown chemical element from inside the UFO around town – he made a note to himself to go inside the spaceship when Stanley and the kids were back from their road trip.

The piece of metal was resting on the bottom of the window perfectly, leaving no gaps, just as the old scientist needed it to be. He picked up the broom and began to take all of the fluid to next to the window. Doing so caused the blurs of the unidentified chemical salt to be revealed, which Stanford thought he would examine later.

It took Stanford around twenty minutes to get all of the fluid to where he wanted it to be, which was fairly a long time. He then began to move it through the path he had made by the piece of metal, which led to outside the window. The fluid was soon pouring down from the window, when the old scientist heard a horrified yell. Soon, a conversation could be heard.

"Oh man, what _was_ that?"

"I don't know man! Maybe Stan's back before us?"

Stanford was listening to the mysterious talk between two men curiously. He could perfectly assume that his brother had done something in the road trip, something he probably shouldn't have done.

"What is going on here?" Stanford heard an old lady's voice, which had apparently disturbed their conversation. He knew he had to take a look outside to see what was going on, so he peeked outside the window.

He saw two men – whom one of them was in a corn costume and the other one was wearing an upside down hat – and an old woman. The man with the corn costume was cleaning his head from the pink fluid. Stanford thought about apologizing to them, but stopped when he heard the other man growl in wrath.

"I'll _kill_ Stan! Pranking us and ruining our attractions, then humiliating us like this?" He said and revealed a baseball bat. "We'll do the same to the Mystery Shack!" he added, yelling as if to start a war. Stanford felt the need to interrupt, but was stopped by seeing them talk again.

"Look…" the old lady said in a low, frightened voice while pointing at the man in the corn costume. "… What's happening to his hair?" She added, which was enough to worry the other two as well. They both checked to see what was going on, only to realize the corn-like man had turned completely bald – Stanford noted to himself to write that in his journal later.

"Joe!? What happened to your hair?" the man told his partner – Joe – and took a step back in worry. "I don't know man! I don't know!" Joe yelled in fright, looking at his confused partners in crime. "Vic! What do I do?" Joe yelled at the other man – Vic.

"Let's get the fuck outta here guys! I have a feeling that we aren't gonna do this." Vic said and rushed to outside Stanford's view, with the other two following.

Stanford smirked at the ridiculous incident and burst out laughing when he heard a sound of a car starting up and driving away. It took him a few minutes to calm down and get back to his work.

* * *

"Well done, Ford Pines. Well done." Stanford told himself after an hour as he took a look at his new handiwork; the office.

Not only there was no fluid inside the office anymore, but there was no more dust left either. He had cleaned the room perfectly, and it was almost Dusk. It had taken him almost a day, but he was now going to fulfill his idea, the one which had come to him just after the examination had been over.

He checked one of his pockets for the piece of crystal he had picked up back in the basement. Finding it, he took it out and looked at it just to make sure it was what he had been looking for. It shined just the way the larger pieces at the forest did. He smiled and searched his other pockets for his flashlight.

After he found it, he tied the piece of crystal to it, and tested the result on the broom to see if it would grow or shrink it. As he turned the flashlight on, he saw the blue shade in the light, which proved to be the side to grow things. His thoughts were confirmed when he saw the broom growing. He turned the flashlight off and turned to what he was actually going to grow. It was the copier.

He was very excited when he turned the flashlight on again, and even more excited when he saw it work on the copier. The old scientist shut the flashlight off soon and walked up to the copier to see if it was as big as he wanted it to be. The copier had grown to the perfect size and now invited him to lie down on it.

"Perfect." He said to himself, then lied down on the copier and pressed the button with an excited grin.

The old scientist felt the ray scanning him and started sweating as he grew nervous. _What if the copied man was mindless, just like the hands he had copied?_

 _Only one way to find out._

He thought and realized that the scanning had been over for a few seconds and got up from the lying statement. He turned to where the paper should have fallen, only to find it empty. _He knew what this meant._

"Nice job with the office, nerd." He heard a voice talking and almost panicked, but calmed down when he realized how much the voice sounded like his own voice – only deeper.

"Wow. I have such a deep voice." Stanford said to his clone, and sighed in relief when he found the other old man standing near the ceiling, analyzing it. "No you don't, nerd." The clone called at him, insulting.

"Hey! You're _my_ clone! You're a nerd as well!" Stanford yelled in response. He never enjoyed being called a nerd.

"Of course, but you're _the_ nerd, nerd." The clone came back sarcastically, which made Stanford fail at holding in his laugh.

"Hello, me, by the way." The clone said.

* * *

 **Author's Notes: So, the first clone is now born. What should I name him? Tell me. :)**

 **And as I said before the beginning of the chapter, I won't be updating in three weeks, because finals.**

 **I hope you have enjoyed this chapter, because I personally enjoyed writing it – especially the ending. :) Tell me in the reviews.**

 **-H80NP**


	6. The Newcomer

**Chapter Six: The Newcomer**

 **Author's Notes: Okay, since no one came up with any names for Stanford's clone, I named him myself, and you'll see why I chose that name!**

 **And oh, since summer vacation has started in a while, I'll be posting more and more chapters, for both this and my other story, which is a crossover (If you're a Rick and Morty fan, make sure to check it out!)**

 **Anyway, this chapter turned out a bit longer than my standards, so I split it in two chapters. And make sure to review for this chapter, I miss hearing your opinions, to be honest. :(**

 **Hope you enjoy!**

* * *

"Your turn, Ford." Stanford turned to face his clone who was speaking. "This next graph paper shows the back of the main building in Diamond King's castle. You need a –"

"Okay, Cliff, I've got this." Stanford said to his clone – whom had been named Clifford – and rolled the thirty-eight-sided die. He knew there was nothing new in his clone's words, for they had been playing for a long time – they had lost track of it – that was why he was so sure to cut Clifford.

The old scientists had come to the underground lab to think over the situation they were dealing with, which consisted of the rift being terrifyingly likely to crack open and cause an apocalypse, the copier in Stanley's office, the salt created after Stanford's failure of an experiment and its identity, whether they needed to hide Clifford from the others, the strangers Stanford had seen earlier, and lastly, the possibility of the Shack not being protected from Bill Cipher.

However, they had spotted an extremely valuable "piece of art" (as Stanford intended to call it). They had found the 60's deluxe version of their beloved game, Dungeons, Dungeons and More Dungeons in the lab. They both remembered the day Stanford bought the full pack of the game from a game maniac for an awefully high price, even though he haggled over it. The memory made them treat the game with an unnatural amount of respect. The game was made of wood entirely, which was gracefully polished and shone under the dim light of their lab, which made it even more unique. That was why they had completely forgotten about their important situation and sat down to relive their –Stanford's – old memories.

"Twenty One!" Stanford said triumphantly as the dice stopped and revealed the said number. "That means I can fight the guardians of the castle with my – "

"Hold on, Ford." Clifford stopped the old scientist with a smirk. "The rules change when your enemy is human. Since humans need less force to fight, you'll have it _too_ easy. That's why the rule says you need at least twenty five and at most thirty five to fight them. Else, wait a turn." The clone picked up the dice as his smirk deepened. Stanford grew confused, then protested. "Wait! You should have noted that!" He yelled angrily at his clone, who kept his calm.

"For your information, I did try to note that, you just rolled the dice. Plus, even if I did tell you, would it affect the odds at all? You should know that yourself." Clifford answered calmly.

"Yes, but you need to tell me when you change the rules. I need to act consciously."

"I didn't _change_ any rules, the book of rules says that itself, Ford. Want me to read it?"

Stanford nodded, still feeling mad.

Clifford picked up a heavy book with a dark cream leather trim, opened it up on a specific page and started reading. " _Note: said rule –_ 'which is the nineteen-plus rule' Clifford explained _– does_ _not_ _apply when facing human enemies or hordes. The player will need a dice of twenty five, thirty five and those in between instead of nineteen and beyond. If the dice is not rolled as said, the player shall wait for one turn._ That's to say you need to wait for one turn now." Clifford finished and laughed hysterically at the conclusion of the argument. Stanford, on the other hand, was taken aback by seeing his clone in such ecstatic, yet immature behavior.

"You're acting like a ten year old, Cliff." The old scientist mumbled with a 'not-interested' look on his face.

"I don't see your point, Ford. I'm just a few hours old."

"What?... oh, oh yes, yes, right." Stanford nodded again, but this time, his clone's behavior got him thinking. There was no way _his clone_ could be this humorous. He had never had so much sense of humor, he always laughed at what others said, not himself.

But Clifford seemed quite the opposite. He was extremely humorous, almost like Stanley when he was young.

 _And someone else…_

"What's wrong, Ford? you seem like you didn't get the joke. Need me to explain?" Clifford said, only to see no response of the old scientist. In fact, he seemed like he drowned in his thoughts even deeper. Clifford, though, wanted to find a way that would snap his twin back to reality. He thought for a few moments, until he found something that Stanford was sensitive on.

"Come on, Sixer, you're drowning in your thoughts a- "

Unfortunately, the nickname was enough to confirm Stanford's wicked suspicions. He jumped on his clone (He was careful not to hurt any of the game's pieces) and tugged him down to the cold floor while looking inside his pockets for one of his tools.

"Ford!? What the hell?" Clifford shouted in shock while trying to break free from the old scientist's grip. But it was no use, he was being held down firmly.

Stanford found his flashlight and pulled it out of his pocket, turned it on, and shone it into his identical clone's eyes…

* * *

About a hundred miles away, five tired souls were taking a break in the Septic Ridge RV Park. They had been on the roads of Oregon for approximately seventeen hours and needed a rest before sleeping. The Pines family – in addition to two others – were using the campfire and pool in the park.

"So I said to the guy, 'Where's _your_ ID, ugly?' that's where I got _this_ scar." Stanley Pines said to his great nephew, revealing an old, but noticeable scar. Dipper chuckled at the ending of his great uncle's story, beginning to talk about his own 'success' at talking to the girls he saw on the road trip. The two kept talking about moving on and such, while the girls were around the campfire, eating and baking marshmallows. They were also playing their own version of Truth Or Dare.

"I choose… don't!" (aaaaaaaand, that's how it's done) Candy said, only to face Grenda complaining. Again.

"Ugh, you always choose Don't!"

"Fine, uh… Truth!" Candy chose again enthusiastically – sharing a secret was far easier to handle than stealing Stanley's rubbers from his wallet (Grenda had to do that at her last turn and Mabel was now keeping the stolen object). But unfortunately for her, Mabel and Grenda were just as creative when it came to Truth. They knew exactly what question to put their fingers on. Candy always wondered where Mabel got the weird ideas from.

"Do you…" The young girl, whose sweater reflected the fire began to ask the question. "… Like someone?" She added playingly, giving candy an 'I-know-what's-going-on' look, although she didn't know who the object was.

"Uh-oh! Someone's blushing!" Grenda said when she saw her friend's face.

As time passed, the five people relaxed to the point that they realized they needed to go inside the RV and sleep, all were about to dose off.

Except for Stanley.

"Nighty-night, Grunkle Stan!" Mabel waved her uncle as she went to the back of the RV, where their beds were.

"Goodnight, pumpkin." Stanley waved back at Mabel, who was the last to go to bed. She stopped and looked back at Stanley.

"When are you gonna sleep, Grunkle Stan?" The young girl asked. "You'll be driving tomorrow, you'll need more sleep than we do."

"It's fine, sweetie. An old-timer like me needs less sleep than you kiddos. Don't worry." Stanley said softly, only to face her great niece's annoyed look.

"Okay, fine, yeah, I'll sleep as soon as I restock the snacks and drinks." He said, but this didn't seem to convince Mabel, because she raised an eyebrow. "You already did restock the juice, and some chips."

"Yeah, but there's some stuff I've missed." He said. "Just leave me alone, will ya?"

This seemed to convince Mabel, because she nodded and walked to the bed. "G'night."

"Goodnight, Mabel." Stanley waved her on and walked out of the RV once the young girl had gone to bed.

Stanley was not lying when he had said he was going to restock some snacks and drinks. He had not restocked the soda and his own drinks. But he had something else to do as well.

After buying the necessary items, he put them in their proper place and put his driver lisence back in his wallet. He then picked up a map from above the dashboard and unfolded it.

"Only one attraction left for tomorrow." The old man mumbled quietly. "Well, this one's an important one. Long time no see, _Mystery Mountain_."

* * *

"Don't _do_ that, Ford! your paranoia is just… ugh."

Back in the lab be neath the Mystery Shack, the two old scientists were calming down from the fight they had gone through. It had begun when Stanford suspected that Clifford might be possessed by Bill, because he was acting so humorous for his sake. The clone also did not have the same metal plate as Stanford in his head.

It turned out that Clifford had the natural sense of humor Stanford had never had. Stanford had no clue how, but he did know that he was not possessed by a certain demon. He was completely himself.

Stanford theorized that it could be the same reason that he and Stanley were completely different people. Or it could be because his genes were copied in the copier, but not applied perfectly the same. Either way, it was not a big deal.

The good thing was, set aside the humor, Clifford and Stanford acted just alike. They smiled the same crooked smile, chuckled the same way, spoke the same words, used the same body language and sounded so much alike that no one could tell unless they both appeared together and talked together.

"Dammit, it's your second time today! And both times have been over nothing." Clifford groaned madly. After the fight, it was his perfect chance to come back at Stanford. The old scientist, though, knew that his clone had rights to be mad at him. He knew how it felt like being tugged to the ground with such force (He had experienced it with Stanley's redheaded employee a few hours ago), and even without the flashlight part, it was painful.

"Actually, Cliff, it's my first time today." Stanford said calmly, getting Clifford's attention. "The incident with Stanley's employee…"

"Wendy?" Clifford reminded him, smiling.

"Yes. The incident with Randy was technically…"

" _Wendy._ " Clifford repeated, chuckling in amuse. "Even I can remember her name and you can't."

"Yes, yes _. Wendy_. The incident with _Wendy_ was yesterday. Technically, now it's tomorrow, if you know what I mean." Stanford said, with sarcastic emphasis on the word Wendy, just to respond to his clone.

"Oh, what time is it now?"

"A while ago it was about half past twelve, and now it's…" Stanford stopped to take a look at his watch. "quarter past one." He said and showed Clifford his watch which read ' 01:16 '.

"Oh, it's this late already?" Clifford said and Stanford nodded. "Wow, I didn't realize it at all."

"Me neither, I guess it's because of the game." Stanford admitted.

"You _guess?_ I bet it's because of the game." Clifford said. "So, should we pack up the game?"

Stanford shook his head. "We'll need it tomorrow. We're going to continue the game after all."

"Shouldn't we discuss the things we need to think about?" Clifford asked half-heartedly – to be honest, he actually wanted to just sit down and play their game tomorrow, but he thought they had to do those discussions.

"We will. After all, the rift is not going to crack within the next day, according to my calculations." Stanford assured his clone that there was not much necessity to be serious. "Besides, checking the Bill-proofing is just a simple check that takes less than ten minutes. And whether or not to show the copier to others, it's just a matter of a decision."

"Okay, so, let's just sleep already, I'm starting to feel tired." Clifford said as he stretched his body and yawned.

"Okay, but where should _you_ sleep?" Stanford thoughtfully, which got Clifford thinking as well.

After a few minutes of thought, Clifford spoke, "The study is just fine. The carpet is pretty comfortable, as well as the couch. You slept on it last night." Clifford gave his idea.

"Are you sure? There's plenty of beds you could use for tonight."

"No, they belong to the others, and I'm not willing to make them complain. The study is just fine, I'll go there." Clifford refused the offer. "Besides, the rift is being kept in the study, right? It's safer if someone's there."

This got Stanford thinking. " _I_ 'll be in the study, then." He said and raised a hand to stop Clifford, who was already protesting. "You are more likely to get possessed than I am. Therefore, you being there is… well, you do know what I'm thinking about."

"Armageddon." The two both said at the same time, then high fived each other in amuse and pure fun – it had been years since Stanford and Stanley had had those moments, and reliving those memories with his clone seemed very nostalgic, yet new to him.

After they had stopped laughing, they made their decision about the places to sleep.

"You'll sleep on the couch, then. I'll be in the study." Stanford said and yawned.

"Okay, then." Clifford also stood up and yawned after Stanford. "I mean, it's the better place to sleep at, anyway." And the two walked to the elevator, each one taking their spot to sleep.

"I'll wake up at nine O' clock. Set your alarm."

* * *

A few hours later, at the study of Stanford Pines, beneath the shack, everything was silent.

The silence only broke with the snorting of the old scientist, who was sleeping on the floor, with his lab coat as his pillow. He was in the deepest part of his sleep, which was as Bill-less and nightmare-less as he could possibly wish for. Stanford Pines, the traumatized scientist, who had been through the worst anybody could imagine, was now smiling on his sleep, for he was dreaming of his older days.

His dream was as peaceful as he had remembered his childhood being. His and Stanley's ten-year-old selves were playing in the sands of Glass Shard Beach, where they would later discover the Stan O' War, which he dreamed of just minutes later. Even at the parts when Crampelter, the bully at their school came on to tease them, Stanford was still smiling. Both his dream self, and his own body back at the study room.

The silence broke again, but this time, not with a deep snore from the old scientist, but by the sound of something… _cracking._

Back in another dimension – the Nightmare Realm – a certain yellow, triangular, spiritual life form was suddenly on alert. His eye snapped open and he looked at where the source of the deep, echoing sound was from.

Only to realize it was not from anywhere near. He had apparently heard it inside his head – or whatever functioned as one – so he knew for sure what this meant.

"The Rift!" the demon felt happiness rise from within himself as he realized what was going on. "I Hope It's The Rift Leading To Dimension 46'1. That Would Be Amazing." He said as he crossed his fingers and checked if his hopes were real.

"It Is!" The demon shouted in a monstrous, evil ecstatic tone, as he clenched his fists and looked further into his virtual ball that revealed any dimension he wanted it to.

"This Is Great. This Dimension Is The Best One To Replace My Decaying Dimension. I Hope It Lasts Long Enough To Serve Me For Eternity." He thought aloud as he looked inside his ball.

He looked around the dimension and found what he was looking for, a big building with the words 'Mystery Shack' written in capital letters on top. He went inside, but was stopped by an unnatural force. He then remembered and sighed. "Okay, Then, You're Messing With Me. Soon Enough, You'll Regret This."

He looked at the forest just near until he stopped observing and sat down on his simple seat.

"Anyways, I Sense A Huge Reunion Coming My Way." Bill Cipher said as he sighed in relief. "Long Time No See, Sixer."

Back on Earth, inside the study room, Stanford Pines was still sleeping, clueless to anything that had happened in the last few minutes. But his sleep had turned wilder and less peaceful than before. Any small problem would tick his dream-self off at Stanley. He was growing colder and colder with his brother…

 _Until he dreamed of that awful day…_

 _._

 **Authors Notes: So?**

 **I made Clifford a humorous person on purpose, because that's what Stanford really needs, and besides, you'll see the rest of my reasons in the next chapters. (It's going to be really, really hilarious :) )**

 **Please, please review for this chapter! I really want to see how you think my chapter was like in your point of view, and it brightens my day a lot hearing your opinions!**

 **Hope you have enjoyed my new chapter!**

 **-H80NP**


	7. Surprise Visit

**Chapter Seven: Surprise Visit**

 **Author's Notes: Just wanted to say I'm sorry about the delay, I've been busy with many things; some family reunions, some summer classes (ugh) and, lastly, my other story – I updated two chapters of it in the meantime.**

 **But here we are! This chapter is going to be pretty serious, as well as the next chapter *Evil laughter* :))**

* * *

The day after, for the two scientists, was mostly spent playing Dungeons, Dungeons And More Dungeons, drinking black coffee, and playing more Dungeons, Dungeons And More Dungeons. After all, the house was ready for when the others came back from their road trip, and there was not much else they had to do. All they needed was the periscope, which was in their lab, so they could check if the family had come back.

With nothing to worry about, they began their day with two mugs of black coffee, to get them through the day, then headed downstairs, to play their last game of Dungeons, Dungeons And More Dungeons where they had left off.

"Okay, so, I'm gonna go inside Diamond King's castle using… where's the die?" Clifford asked. "I'm sure I left it next to the board." He added, looking for the dice.

"It's at the corner of the board, look." Stanford answered calmly and pointed to the corner of the game, where a thirty eight sided die made out of wood was sitting.

"Oh, here it is." Clifford said as he picked the dice up. "That's weird. It was almost like camouflage."

"Yes, yes. Now, just roll the dice." Stanford said, and Clifford did so. The dice rolled across the game and stopped soon, only to show a five. Clifford groaned in frustration.

"Hope you have better luck next time." Stanford said and picked up the dice as Clifford waited for his next turn.

None of them had any idea that there was something way more important they had to discuss.

.

A few hours later, and a few miles away, an RV was on the Oregon roads, driving under the light of the setting sun. Inside the vehicle were five people of whom only two were awake.

"We're only twenty miles away, Dipper." Stanley said as he took the path that led to the town Gravity Falls. Meanwhile, Dipper who was solving a crossword puzzle, shifted his attention to his great uncle, who was driving.

"What? How long's it been?" He asked and put the paper down on his lap.

"You've been drownin' in that puzzle for more than two hours." Stanley explained, as if to complain. "I thought I told ya to keep me company, so I won't fall asleep." He added, which made his nephew feel pretty guilty for not doing as his uncle had told. "Sorry, I forgot to…"

"It's okay, kid. Now…" The old man said and pointed his thumb to the back of the RV, and that was when Dipper noticed a snoring sound coming from the back. "Wake 'em up. They've been Snortin' like hell for an hour. Tell 'em we'll be there in fifteen minutes." He explained and looked at Dipper. The twelve-year-old, though, felt a bit uncomfortable with waking the girls up, especially after what had happened with Candy – although he did apologize.

"Uh… okay… but…" He said as he started to sweat slightly. "Do we have to wake them up now? I mean, might be too early…"

Stanley, who had seen right through the kid, cut him off. "Don't worry about it kid, there's nothing wrong with that." He said, grinning at his nephew, as if to say 'I know what's up in your head.'

Dipper felt even tenser after he realized he had acted so obvious. "Okay, then… then I'll just… go wake them up, then…" He said and stood up from his seat, walking to the back.

At the back, he spotted one of the sleeping girls on the table. Grenda had fallen asleep on the lunch table and was currently murmuring words under her breath that Dipper couldn't understand – although he was glad the words were unclear, because said girl was chewing on the corner of the table as well.

"Maybe I should go wake Mabel first..." He said quietly as he adjusted his cap brim and moved on to where the rooms were.

He opened the door to the room where he and Mabel slept every night and looked inside. "Mabel?" He said slowly, but got no response – not even a sleepy moan, which was the way she always answered to her. He opened the door wide and saw no one on the beds. The sheets looked as if they hadn't been used since they woke up in the morning – they changed the sheets in the morning.

So he went to the other room, where the other two usually slept, and opened the door, and found Mabel and Candy taking a nap on two beds.

He slowly went to the bed where Mabel was and instantly knew that she was deep asleep. He gave her shoulders a gentle squeeze – he knew it was the best way to wake her up. Mabel, though, seemed to be in a deeper sleep than her twin had thought, as she simply began sleep talking louder.

 _Oh, boy, here it goes again._ Dipper thought and rolled his eyes – he had heard Mabel's sleep talking before, and he knew what her dreams were made out of.

"mmmm…..Mermandooo…." Mabel said in her sleep, which made Dipper disappointed. He thought about just letting it go, but he knew that they were getting to Gravity Falls soon. So he resorted to calling her name – he didn't want Candy to wake up like that.

"Mabel, wake up!" Dipper whispered slowly, making Mabel's sleep talking louder.

"Mmmmm… Mermandooo….. C'mere…."

"Ewww! Gross!" Dipper said slowly, feeling stupid for doing this. "Wake up! Mabel!" Then he shook her harder.

"Dipper?" the boy heard a voice calling him, and turned to see Candy without glasses, rubbing her eyes.

"Whoa!" he yelped uncomfortably, then cleared his throat and face palmed. "Sorry, Candy. Did I wake you up?" Dipper asked softly and ashamedly, but the girl shook her head. "I have been awake for around fifteen minutes now. I started to read a book, because everyone was sleeping." She explained in her somewhat odd accent. She then showed Dipper a small and pretty thick book with the words "Darren Shan" written in big, capital letters on top. The cover showed a tall man with orange hair and a spider on his hand, who looked familiar to Dipper. "it's the Cirque Du Freak. Do you know this book?" She asked him with a smile.

"How… How far have you read?" he asked.

"I'm at the last few pages now. Have you read this book?" She asked again.

"I _love_ this series of books! You've GOT to read all twelve of them!" The boy said enthusiastically, then remembered why he was here at the first place. "Uhh… uhm. Okay, I just wanted to tell you guys that we're only fifteen minutes away. So, pack up." Dipper said and started to leave, when he noticed that Mabel's bed was empty. "What? Mabel's not here…?" He said as he turned to Candy. She shrugged in response, but immediately looked at where the door was. Dipper turned and was suddenly taken to the ground by her floating ball of a sister.

"Booom!" Mabel said and burst out laughing as she tugged her brother to the ground. Dipper, though, didn't expect this, and, unluckily, didn't like it either.

"Mabel! Let go!" Dipper shouted as loud as he could. Mabel, meanwhile, was enjoying the prank perfectly.

"MABEL! MABEL! LET ME GO!" Dipper yelled, this time threatening. Mabel sat up as soon as she realized how pissed his brother was.

"Okay!" She said and held her hand out for Dipper to help him up. Dipper, though, ignored her completely and sat up himself.

"Wake Grenda up." He said simply as he left, only to find Grenda with a filming camera in her hands, which made him even madder.

He groaned and walked to his seat and sat down. Stanley noticed how mad his nephew seemed, and instantly found a way to calm him down. He showed his a sign they were passing by, which said "Gravity Falls, 10 miles".

"We're almost there, kiddo." He said and Dipper was relieved.

"I'm feeling sleepy, Grunkle Stan. Do we have anything to do when we get there?" Dipper asked.

"No, I'm gonna sleep myself. Driving is reaaaally boring." Stanley said and sighed. "Back before I came here to make the Mystery Shack, I drove for eleven hours a day, maybe even more. Now, three hours of driving is hell to me. I'm gettin' old." He added.

"Don't say it, Grunkle Stan, at least you _do_ seem happier with this road trip." Dipper said. "Plus, your back didn't hurt when you did that prank to Upside Down Town, remember?" He added and Stanley chuckled.

"Yeah, you got a point there, kid." He said and sighed again. "In ten minutes, I'm in my bed, resting in peace."

"Don't say it Grunkle Stan, it feels…" Dipper paused because he ran out of words.

"What? Do I have to die to have rest and peace together?" Stanley jokingly protested, making Dipper laugh.

"Apparently, yes."

"You better not talk about my snorting tomorrow at the funeral, then." Stanley said without even a moment of hesitation, wearing a wide grin. The two laughed at their dark humor.

At that moment, the girls showed up with their backpacks ready on their backs.

"Grunkle Stan, we're ready!" Mabel announced aloud.

"Great, I didn't wanna wait for ya packing up." Stanley responded. "I'm hella tired. I'm sleeping when we get there."

"Me too." Dipper said. "I haven't slept since six o' clock in the morning."

"Come on you too! It's only eight O' clock!" Mabel protested. "At least prepare something for dinner before you sleep, Grunkle Stan!"

"There's instant ramen in the kitchen. Dipper knows where they are." Stanley said. "But don't touch the brown meat! It's for emergency." He added, then faced Dipper. "The apocalypse!" He whispered to him and winked. Dipper remembered the time when Stanley was collecting brown meat, and kept on saying 'It's apoca-licious!' and laughed.

Candy looked at Mabel with a questioning expression and the sweater wearing girl shrugged.

The thought of what the old conman meant was soon gone when they saw a sign saying "Now entering Gravity Falls" as well as the water tower at the entry of town – which was not sprayed by a certain emo teen. "Whoo-hoo!" The girls cheered as they reached the borders of their beloved town.

"I still feel a little bad for wrecking all those tourist traps." Dipper said with a shade of guilt in his voice.

"C'mon, everybody loves my pranks. And the best part is, I'll never have to face any consequences." Stanley said, smiling. "Ah, here we are!" He added as they saw the shack in front of them.

The kids jumped out of the RV as soon as Stanley parked the van. They all looked at their beloved home, the Mystery Shack, safe as ever, not even a scratch.

They had no idea that they owed a certain scientist in the underground lab for having their shack safe and sound, nor did Stanford himself.

* * *

An hour later, the shack was completely silent. Dipper and Stanley were asleep. All lights were out and no sound could be heard. To Mabel, it felt like midnight, but she had never stayed up after her regular bedtime, except one time when she felt rebellious – and regret it when she fell asleep at school during lunch break. All she could remember was Dipper waking her up and her face being covered in cheese and ketchup.

What made the young girl feel uncomfortably weird was the time the clock showed; Nine O' clock. To her, nine o' clock meant the two of them sitting beside their Grunkle Stan and having him shift through the channels until they found something one of them liked – of course, sometimes, when they went monster hunting, they would be at the forest at the time. But what was going on now was as if it were one AM.

The sweatered girl – she hadn't put on her nightgown yet – was bored at the moment. In fact, she was so bored that she had tried reading two of Dipper's books, one being a nerdy, complicated sci-fi book which bored her even more, the other one being 'The Sibling Brothers' which she decided not to read at seeing the cover – Dipper talked about that book a lot.

She also tried to lie down in bed until she would fall asleep. She tried thinking about something pleasant, so she remembered all of the details of their road trip. The biggest yarn ball (Rest in peace), Upside Down Town (again rest in peace), The Corn Maze – where they left without Soos, she remembered – the wood land (She didn't know what prank Stanley did to _that_ attraction) The night they spent at the RV park, and then, the Mystery Mountain…

"No, that doesn't Work." Mabel whispered to herself as she sat up from her bed, then left the attic.

She then went to the kitchen and opened the fridge to have something. She found a few cupcakes inside and picked up one to eat. Hopefully it was one of her favorite flavors – chocolate with strawberry jam inside.

Taking a bite of the cupcake made her feel somewhat better, so she thought about finding something else to do, so she checked the time again to see if she remembered any program that she could watch on the TV. But she couldn't remember anything she could watch at 9 o' clock.

Since she had nothing to do, she walked out of the kitchen and turned the lightbulb inside the kitchen off.

Then she turned and looked at the lightbulb again. The lightbulb ticked something in her mind, then she remembered how they fixed the lightbulb one morning. Grunkle Ford helped them with that…

Grunkle Ford…

Then Mabel realized she had been missing the obvious solution. Of course! Grunkle Ford would never sleep so soon, and was probably downstairs in his lab at the moment.

"Of course! I'll pay Grunkle Ford a visit!"

She turned to the vending machine, but stopped and went back to the kitchen. Mabel wanted to take her great uncle some cupcakes as well.

* * *

"Alright, Ford. This is the broken mirror inside the periscope. Took me hours to get it out of there." Clifford said as he handed a broken mirror to Stanford, then wiped his brow.

"Huh. It's cracked more than I'd thought." Stanford said thoughtfully as he observed the broken mirror.

"Let's just hope the same doesn't happen to the rift." Clifford said with a shade of terror in his voice. The two scientists both knew what would happen if they let the rift crack open. "Have you checked if it's cracked any larger or not?"

"No, but it would be safe in two or three days. I've calculated that, and I'm sure I made no mistakes." Stanford assured his clone calmly, although he was a bit worried. "I'll go with Dipper tomorrow." He whispered.

"Where?" Clifford asked the old scientist.

"The alien spaceship. I'll search for the alien adhesive there, and I'll take Dipper with me. An extra pair of hands is always good. Plus, I might talk to him about the apprenticeship." He explained

"I don't think you should." Clifford said. "He's a kid, and as far as I – you – have seen their bonding, I think you should give it a few years. Let him finish school and college just _might_ be a good time to ask him that."

"I don't want to enter the waiting game. It's a dangerous game, I've played it before in the last twenty years." Stanford said. "I'm too old to wait five years for his education to be over, I might even be dead then."

They stopped their argument when they heard a clicking sound from their side. They instantly turned to where the elevator was, only to find a girl in a pink, shooting star sweater holding two cupcakes in her small hands. Her jaw dropped and eyes wide in confusion.

Mabel had barged in on the Fords.

* * *

 **Author's Notes: I think this chapter isn't as good as I thought it should be, but I'd love to hear your views anyways :)**

 **About the part with waking Mabel up and the whole thing, sorry if it seemed pointless and irrelevant, but it's actually a long story. I've had a lot of such experiences with sleeptalking. I once pulled an all-nighter and my cousin was over at our house, and I basically heard a full set of words a war commander would say. Imagine studying history and then suddenly; "Soliders! Attack!" – read in an epic, commanding tone. xD**

 **Anyways, Review on this chapter as well! I'd love to hear your thoughts on my writing, and feel free to tell me any typos or errors you find.**

 **-H80NP**


	8. Surprise Visit II

**Chapter Eight: Surprise Visit II**

 **Author's Notes: So, I was pretty disappointed at continuing this story and thought it may not be worth putting my time into, so I didn't start writing until just two days ago, when I came back to my writeful path of words. (I'm going to give my friend credits for this pun before it's too late xD )**

 **Anyway, it's the shortest a chapter has taken to be done for me! I hope you enjoy!**

* * *

"I don't want to enter the waiting game. It's a dangerous game, I've played it before in the last twenty years." Stanford said. "I'm too old to wait five years for his education to be over, I might even be dead then."

They stopped their argument when they heard a clicking sound from their side. They instantly turned to where the elevator was, only to find a girl in a pink, shooting star sweater holding two cupcakes in her small hands. Her jaw dropped and eyes wide in confusion.

Mabel had barged in on the Fords.

* * *

Mabel's first response was to catch the cupcake she was about to drop. The two scientists looked at each other wordlessly, not knowing what to do with their unexpected visitor. Mabel seemed confused as well. She would have expected seeing his Uncle doing any sort of an experiment when she came downstairs, but seeing two Grunkle Fords was far beyond her expectations.

A few minutes passed by without anyone saying even a word, so Mabel decided to speak up.

"Hi, Uncle Fords! I just came downstairs because I was bored, how's it going?" She said, smiling as if nothing weird had happened, which made the Fords even more uncomfortable, even though she had no idea.

Then one of the Fords spoke up, trying to keep his calm. "Mabel, you can't just interrupt me…"

"Us." The other Ford corrected.

"Yes, yes. Us. You can't just interrupt us when we're doing something important because you're bored. Why don't you spend your time with Dipper or Stanley?"

"they're both asleep already." Mabel said. "And it's just nine O' clock. I thought you might be still awake doing some sort of studying or experimenting, or whatever, so I came here and brought you a cupcake." She added and offered her great uncle the cupcake. The old man looked at the tiny cake, took it and calmed down a bit.

"Okay, Mabel, listen carefully." He said, and the little girl focused her attention and nodded. "whatever I tell you tonight _needs_ to stay between us. Even Dipper shouldn't know anything about it." He added and his niece nodded understandingly. "Okay, but who is _he?"_ She asked and pointed to the other Ford, then guessed before anyone could explain. "Ohmigosh! I should have guessed! You and Grunkle Stan aren't twins, you're _triplets!_ " She said enthusiastically. The two old scientists gave each other wordless looks again, then one of them chuckled. "I guess you can say that he _made_ us triplets yesterday."

"Mabel, look." The other Ford said. "Yes, he was born, created, cloned, or whatever you would call it…"

"I'd rather not be treated like a bacteria." The other Ford demanded.

"Yes, yes. It happened yesterday, and his name's Clifford. But it's not importance, although you should keep it a secret for now." Stanford explained.

"Okay, I promise that I won't tell anyone about Grunkle Cliff." Mabel promised with her hand on her chest as a gesture, which made Clifford chuckle.

"Thanks for assuring me, Mabel." Stanford said and smiled.

"No prob. But what is the more important thing anyway?" Mabel asked.

"Oh, well…" Stanford said and found himself struggling to find something to say. "It's far more important than you'd want to know, Mabel."

"But Dipper could." The little girl said, now sounding more serious.

"Kid, what are you saying?" Clifford said and stepped closer.

"Cliff, it's fine." Stanford assured his clone, then faced his niece. "In fact, even Dipper doesn't know about what I mentioned, but I might need his help with it tomorrow." He assured her calmly.

"How important is it that I can't know about it, but my own twin brother can?" Mabel said. "Grunkle Ford, since you came back, all Dipper can talk about is what he does in your lab, I may not be interested in what you're doing, but I don't wanna be… _unwelcome_ here…"

"It's not like that, Mabel." Stanford said and knelt down to Mabel's hight. "You're just as welcome to my lab as he is, I just think you are not delighted to come down here to me as much."

"Us." Clifford corrected.

"Yes, yes. Us." Stanford said dryly.

"Okay, I understand." Mabel said, relieved.

"I'm glad you do, Mabel." Stanford said and gave her shoulders a warm pat, Mabel smiled in response.

"but still, how important could it be? I mean, it's not like the world's gonna end if you make a mistake." Mabel said, only to catch her two great uncles' darkened expressions. "… or is it?" She said slowly, worried herself. Clifford nodded in response while the identical old scientist stayed silent. "Oh, my…" Mabel said in response, then looked to the ground, so did the Fords.

"Then you and my Bro will be the saviors of the world! Yaaay!" Mabel exploded with joy and jumped up and down.

While Stanford didn't know how to respond, Clifford seemed proud of his great niece's optimism. "Not only you're weird, you're a lot more positive than we are."

"Of course! It'e a me, Mabel!" (Author: Whoever caught the allusion is a legend :))) ) She answered and made both her great uncles laugh.

After a few seconds, the laughter calmed down and Mabel asked the question that was in his mind. "Seriously though, how is this important stuff related to the world ending? I don't see it."

"Mabel, listen." Stanford said and knelt down again. "remember of when I told you about Bill's plans?"

"Yeah, the whole 'no one in the family will be safe' junk." She finger-quoted.

"Not just the family…" Clifford said, fear in his voice.

"But the whole planet." Stanford finished for his clone. "There is an if though, and it's if Bill is able to fulfill his plans, which is what I'll be going to prevent. That's where I need an extra pair of hands."

"And that's why Grunkle Cliff is here?" Mabel guessed.

"No, one of us will have to stay here, and please don't expect me to tell you why." Stanford said and Mabel nodded, although she was highly curious to know. Stanford continued. "I'll ask Dipper for help, and we'll have to go out of the shack, so Cliff stays here, and also, one more thing…" Stanford stopped. "Please don't come down here while me and Dipper go out. While it might be tempting, but please stay upstairs."

"Okay, Uncle Ford." Mabel said. "So, you and Dip-Dop will be preventing the end of the world before it even happens?" She said and Stanford nodded. "That's awesome! It's better than saving the world, it won't even happen anymore!" She squeaked, making the scientists smile.

"Pretty much, yes." Clifford said.

Mabel smiled, then noticed something she was about to step on. "Oh, by the way, what's this?" She said and pointed at a certain wooden board with a few pieces on it.

"Oh that?" Clifford said and came closer. "That's the sixties version of Dungeons, Dungeons and More Dungeons. Wanna Play, Mabel?" Clifford said and faced the sweatered girl.

"Umm…" She was unsure, but suddenly remembered of something. "Is it _real life edition_?" She beamed up when she remembered the time when she and Stanley defeated a wizard called Probabilitor.

"Yes!" Clifford said. Mabel gasped in delight, eyes wide and sparkling.

"Aaaaand… no." Clifford said, making mabel's expression go from a beamed up one to an offended one.

"I'll play, anyways." She said, then looked at the board. "Because the game looks _gorgeous_!" She said with sparkly eyes and looked at the professionally crafted board and game pieces. All pieces were polished and shone beautifully.

"I spent two hundred dollars on it." Stanford said, taking a sip of his mug of coffee, while Mabel dropped the piece of the game she had grabbed. She then turned to Stanford. "Really?" She said in awe and Stanford nodded. "Even my bro wouldn't spent that much on a board game." She said.

"This is far more than just a board game. It's a piece of history, I was a mere baby when this game was handcrafted. It's also ultimately rare. Only six hundred and eighteen sets of the game were built out of wood like this one." Stanford explained and took another sip from his coffee.

"Umm, oh yeah… sure… I get it, umm…"

"Don't pay it much mind, Mabel. Let's just start the first round." Clifford waved Stanford off.

"Yeah, let's! I hope it's as interesting as the real life edition, though." Mabel said thoughtfully.

"Don't worry, there's ways to make it interesting. Shall we go with the "make the rules yourself" method?" Clifford said, smiling at his niece.

"Of Course!" Mabel said, fists in the air with excitement. Then she grabbed the dice, when an idea hit her mind. "Hey! We can also make a plot outline too! Give it a story!" She said and Clifford chuckled. "Okay, you come up with a plot." He said and Mabel thought.

"How about, we're in the middle of a lost jungle, when we find a magical princess of the…" The little girl went on with the plot as Stanford rolled his eyes. "Cliff, I've got a few tasks to do." He said and went to the elevator. Clifford knew what the old scientist was going to do, but Mabel, clueless, was going on with her plot.

"Then… BAAAMMM! An explosion and their army comes out! Oh no! We should fight them back! We've got to put our efforts together and…"

"Whoa, hold up, we've got to fight against each other, not fight by each other's side. That's what makes the game interesting." Clifford protested.

"Umm, okay then… then you turn out to be by their side and go to their castle, while I…"

* * *

"Yes! Mabel wins again!" Mabel shouted enthusiastically as she won her 7th win in the last two hours. Clifford rolled his eyes. "That last 38 you took was a cheat." He said and pointed out to the piece of chewing gum that was sticking out of the bottom of the dice. "How many gums do you chew at once, anyway?" Clifford pointed out, then Mabel began revealing her records of the amount of gums to chew; "Oh, I'm a master at chewing so many gums at once! I once reached twenty, but almost choked so my mom took me to the hospital!"

"Wow. That's, umm… impressive…" Clifford said thoughtfully.

"Of course! Even Grunkle Stan was totally weirded out when I told him about it! My other records are mostly around twelve, thirteen, sometimes even fifteen!" She said with pride. "And this one was probably around six or seven gums chewed together." She pointed out.

"Okay, this is a little disgusting to talk about, plus, I hope you haven't damaged the game." Clifford said and looked back to the thirty eight sided die. Mabel gasped.

"Oh no! Grunkle Cliff I'm sorry!" She said then tried to remove the dice from the board, which she could successfully remove.

"Don't worry, polished wood is too slippery for gum to stick to. All that can happen is a gum-print on the board." Clifford assured his great niece.

"Oh… okay, phew!" She said and removed the gum(s) from the dice as well.

"No worries. Now, you're ahead, seven to six! Never thought I'd be left behind."

"Yaaay! Mabel! Mabel! Mabel!" She sang the self-made chant and calmed down.

"Ford always beat Dipper. i don't know if I'm doing worse than Ford, or you're better than your brother, which is unlikely." Clifford said thoughtfully.

"Ohmigosh! I gotta tell Dip-Dop about this later!" Mabel said, then saw Clifford's uncomfortable expression. "uh, I know, it's embarrassing to admit, so I'll keep it."

"No, my point is, your brother shouldn't know about me." Clifford said.

"Oh, yeah, right. I forgot. I'll keep it." Mabel said and Clifford smiled.

At that moment, The other Ford came in to the basement. "Mabel, Cliff, I have good news and bad news. Which one should I say first?"

"Good news." Mabel said.

"Bad news." Clifford said.

Stanford, confused on what to do, decided he could go with the good news. "okay. Good news…"

"Wait, I asked for bad news." Clifford protested.

"Does it really matter? Now… Good news is, today is the big day." Stanford announced.

"Today? I thought tomorrow was…" Mabel said, confused. Meanwhile, Clifford rolled his eyes. "He means it's past twelve O' clock."

"Oh, right. So?" Mabel said.

"bad news is, Mabel, You need to go to sleep, because it's much too late, and we are going to sleep as well." Stanford said, then Mabel sighed. "Okay, I guess even I need sleep, after all."

"Of course. The only beings that don't need rest are insects – some of them. Anyway, how did the game go?" Stanford asked and caught Mabel's proud expression. "Oh I can already guess. Ten to two, Mabel's win?" He said grinning at his clone, only to face Clifford's protests. "No! She just got ahead, Seven to six!" He stood up and got a fighting pose.

"Okay, Cliff, I was kidding. But did she actually beat you?" Stanford said, making Mabel giggle.

"I can't believe she beat me while Dipper lost to you most of the time." Clifford said. "I think she's a better player than her brother."

"Aww, thanks Grunkle Cliff!" Mabel said, flattered.

"Okay, Mabel, we're all tired, so go upstairs and sleep. Okay?" Stanford said softly and she nodded. "It was fun tonight, anyways." She smiled at the Fords and went inside the elevator. "Nighty-night!" She waved at her great uncles and pressed the button to the gift shop.

The Fords waved back at her as well, then waited for her to go up.

When they heard the click of the elevator arriving upstairs, Stanford turned to his clone. "The copier is upstairs. You know what you should do if… you know what." He said and Clifford nodded.

"But don't you think that it might cause a problem if _I_ do it? I mean, it wouldn't be a problem if you did it." Clifford questioned.

Stanford thought about the question and nodded. "Okay. But I might change my mind. I'm really hesitant."

"let's just hope that thing doesn't need to be done at all." Clifford said. "Anyways, Let's hit the hay."

"Yes, yes. I'm sleepy as well. You get the room upstairs." Stanford said and stepped into the elevator.

* * *

As everyone fell asleep, all the lights were off in the shack. Even the basement was silent and empty. In the study, Stanford Pines dreamed the calmest of dreams. Clifford Pines slept on the couch with a crooked smile on his face and his lab coat as a pillow. Stanley Pines was dreaming of hiring Wendy as his employee. He was smiling as well. That day was one of the best days in his last ten years.

Upstairs, Mabel was also dreaming of a complex map in the game she had played just an hour ago. For Dipper, though, it was a different story…

* * *

 **Author's Notes: I personally LOVED this chapter, so much I didn't get up from writing it at all. I love the bonding between the Fords and Mabel (Fun fact: even though I ship WenDip, my favorite character is Mabel)**

 **By the way, Tell me if you found the allusion (It's a me) in the reviews! What is it referring to? Plus, tell me what you think of the story!**

 **-H80NP**


	9. Spectator of Destruction

**Chapter Nine: Spectator Of Destruction**

 **Author's Notes: Here you guys are! Can't believe I'm already posting the 9** **th** **chapter of this story, especially being on a trip!**

 **I've been running high on inspiration lately, so much as I wrote most of this chapter in around an hour in my notebook, which is just… never happened before – except once, during a math class. =)**

 **Also, you might be confused at what's going on at the beginning, but just keep reading and it'll make sense.**

 **Enjoy!**

* * *

A reddened sky. a disgusting scent in the air, which smelled of threat, destruction and something unknown to him. A nightmarish hole in the sky, almost like a black hole but much more colorful. Although it was a colorful object, it spread a great sense of fear in him, himself having no idea why.

What could be worse was what he saw when he looked a bit lower down. He saw a dark, yet glowing stone pyramid floating in the sky, whose tip was floating a bit higher than the rest. The mountains were spitting magma with force, like volcanoes roaring back to life after centuries of silence. Much closer to him, he could see strange creatures – almost like monsters – running around, laughing devilishly and sometimes attacking the unlucky souls whom their bloodlust-filled eyes caught. He always tried to look away every time he saw a person being approached by those things – he never wanted to even imagine what happened when the monsters attacked those people.

At the background was the remains of destroyed buildings and city decorations. He noticed something that seemed to be a melted statue in the middle of a square. Also a collapsed tower-like building that he could tell had seen better days. A bit far away was an evergreen forest, but a noticeable amount of trees were black – all burnt. He then noticed a water tower at another place in his view. He turned and found it, only to realize that somehow, it was _moving._ He then saw the wooden part on its top flip back and reveal a set of sharp teeth and a horrifyingly big tongue inside. Not a second after a deafening shriek rang throughout the whole place. The twelve year old blocked his ears in response – he didn't want his hearing lost.

Dipper Pines was sitting at the edge of the roof of one of the very few houses that hadn't been crushed to the ground. It seemed like the monsters had forgotten to destroy a few things – fortunately. The twelve year old was looking at what seemed to be an apocalyptic mayhem from a close, yet safe distance. He was filled with fear and dread, but also confused. He had no memory of how he got here in the middle of this chaotic, destroyed town. He didn't know where he was, he didn't know why he was here, he didn't know what had happened here. Since watching monsters celebrating whatever was the reason of their joy – nothing came to the preteen's mind but 'Fresh Meat' – was nothing pleasant to watch, Dipper began looking for clues to find out what was going on.

That was when he realized that even though everything was mysteriously unknown to him, deep inside, he felt like he was pretty familiar with everything he saw. He felt like he used to know many of the things he saw, but he didn't know from where. He felt like he'd seen or maybe even walked on the street in front of him before, but he didn't know when. He felt like the living water tower was something he'd seen before, but he didn't know how. He felt like he knew the giant goat that was chewing on the trees around it, but he didn't quite remember.

He kept on looking around for clues, desperately trying to ignore the screams and shrieks coming from the monsters – or even more painfully, the people.

He then heard another sound, but it wasn't like those he kept hearing at the background. It was rather like a sound of a piece of metal being broken in two pieces, and it caught Dipper's attention. He turned, only to find a gigantic, grossly misshapen crab with three heads holding a big, green sign in one of its mouths. He just ignored it and almost looked away from the creature, when something caught his eyes.

 _The writings on the sign._

He instantly turned back to where he saw the sign and found the sign and narrowed his eyes to read it.

"Now entering Gravity Falls."

 _Gravity Falls._

 _Gravity Falls._

 _Gravity Falls._

The weird name rang through his mind for a few seconds, until it finally rang a bell, one Dipper wished never rang. He immediately felt twice as much panic as he came to a harsh realization.

Gravity Falls was the town he had spent the entire summer at, where he came to his great uncle's place for a three-month long stay, where he discovered the supernatural and investigated it, where he made so many new, precious friends, and now… it was all…

 _Destroyed._

He couldn't believe the small town he'd been living in for a few months had been conquered by monsters and demons, he didn't _want to_ believe it had happened. It could have just been a mistake. Maybe the sign wasn't from the town itself, but from a few hundred miles away? Maybe it was another town he'd visited before, and that was why it seemed so familiar. It couldn't have happened. Not in Gravity Falls.

But it had. It all made sense. The living water tower had the writing Gravity Falls on its back as well. The giant goat was Gompers, the one that always chewed on whatever it found around the shack. The melted statue was actually Nathanial Northwest's statue, which must have been hurt somehow. Now he knew why he felt like he initially knew the place. He and Mabel had come here three months ago and now it was…

 _What on earth had happened to Mabel!?_

The kid sat up in panic as soon as the question formed in his mind. He started to run and look for Mabel, when someone – or something – jumped on him and took him down to the floor. Frightened, he screamed when the person – or thing – that took him down covered his mouth with their hand to muffle his scream. Dipper tried to get rid of the tight grip on his mouth and took hold of the hand to force it off, when he noticed something.

The hand was a person's.

The fact that he was held down by a human made him calm down and he stopped struggling. Meanwhile, the person kept him down with a force so strong it was unnatural for a person, especially when the hand he'd seen was so delicate, almost like a girl's.

"Keep it down, dude. You wouldn't want to have those _things_ knowing we're here." The person – who was a female – said in a loud whisper. Dipper couldn't tell who she was, but judging by the use of words and tone of voice, it was definitely not Mabel.

After being kept down for another few seconds, she loosened her grip on the twelve year old's mouth. "Alright, we're all clear." She said and stood up carefully, letting him see her face, which Dipper instantly recognized.

"Wendy!" Dipper said enthusiastically, but louder than he should have, much louder than he should have. He stood up to embrace his crush, but was stopped by her, rather harshly.

"Cut it! They're gonna see us –" she whispered aloud again, but stopped when a creature with countless faces – as well as an ugly pair of wings – jumped on the roof, making the building shake. The twelve year old boy was scared, knowing that he had no way out of the misshapen beast's many sets of razor sharp teeth. All he could hope for was his friend surviving.

"Dude, just go. I'll handle it." Wendy said very quietly, quite confident in her words. She was much stronger than Dipper was, and could easily kill the monster before it hit the ground. Dipper, though, felt responsible for this situation.

"No, Wendy. I'll take care of this _thing._ " The twelve year old said, sounding determined. He felt like he had to be a hero. Once and for a lifetime.

 _Okay, Dipper. You've got to prove yourself. You've got to prove that you can beat that useless creature. You've got to save Wendy!_

Dipper thought in his mind, and ended it with something among the lines of 'Wow, I'm so epic.' and walked up to the monster. The creature noticed him, all of its many eyes on him, moving towards him.

Dipper began to sweat in terror, but instantly pulled himself together and walked towards the creature, his small fists clenched with determination.

"Dude, stop! What do you think you're doing?" Wendy whispered to Dipper, worry in her voice as she came closer to her friend for some backup. Dipper, though, focused and walked up to the monster, making the creature growl – or at least, growling was what it meant for it to sound like.

Dipper thought about his next move. What could he do to hurt the thing? He had to go for the weak spots, but he didn't _know_ any weak spots. Maybe he could just punch the thing, and…

The monster stroke.

All Dipper could do in response to the sudden attack was scream in fright, regretting his heroic thoughts earlier, when he was taken down by Wendy. Again.

"Dude, you crazy or…" She began to complain, but her words turned into a chocking noise. This worried Dipper by so many levels. Was Wendy hurt? He thought, but found the answer soon when Wendy was suddenly thrown a few feet away…

 _By the monster._

Dipper stood up hurriedly and found Wendy to his left on the roof, but the monster was there too. Although, despite what Dipper thought he would see, they weren't wrestling.

 _Because Wendy wasn't moving._

Dipper thought that the teen was faking death to make the creature run away – she'd told her before that the same trick worked on animals, especially bears perfectly. But he was struck with a lightning of fear when he noticed a few other details.

Her skin had gone unnaturally paler, her eyes were closed, the creature beside her, looking at her with a certain monstrous pride in its many eyes.

Dipper almost formed the thought of a certain possibility in his head but couldn't bring himself to believe it. "No, it can't be…" He thought, but then the news broke to him like a hammer smashing his feelings and mind together when he say red drops behind her body, which turned into a red pool.

Desperate and depressed, he knelt down upon her body, on the roof, sobbed and began screaming dreadfully.

* * *

Back at the Mystery Shack, a certain twelve year old woke up from a horrifying, terrible nightmare, gasping for air, covered in cold sweat entirely. It took him a few terrifying seconds to fully realize where he was and how the world had not ended and it was just a nightmare. He instantly got up from his bed and looked out their attic's triangular window. All he saw through the layer of glass was a calm night sky, full of shining stars, a full moon in its center, The trees of the forest blowing and moving swiftly with every blow of the nighttime breeze.

He sighed in relief when he realized that there was never an Armageddon, no monsters, no huge pyramid floating, no hole in the sky, no one dying. Gravity Falls was at its finest, just like the first day they moved in.

He kept on looking outside and calming down even more, when he noticed a light coming from his right.

"Dipper?" He heard his sister's whispering voice say, and he turned to see a sleepy Mabel, rubbing her eyes, and a turned on nightlight. "You're up already?"

Dipper then remembered of his nightmare, especially the particular moment he realized his sister was missing. The dread and guilt he felt…

"Mabel, you're okay!" He exclaimed with joy, yet kept his voice quiet so no one would wake up. He then walked to his sister to embrace her, only to fall on the floor when his foot hit something on the floor.

"Oh, are you kidding me?" He said as he attempted to stand up.

"What's going on, bro-bro? You're seriously ackin' cray-cray." She asked and rubbed her eyes. Dipper stood up and rubbed his aching toe, wincing. "Nothing, Mabel. Just had a nightmare." He explained, now in a slightly worse mood – his smaller toe never failed him when it came to hitting things.

"A nightmare?" Mabel asked and sat on her bed. She seemed curious and somewhat scared, which worried Dipper. "With or without Bill?" Mabel asked.

"Without. We secured the shack, remember?" Dipper explained, and Mabel nodded. "I know, it just seemed weird because you haven't had a nightmare since then." She said. "Plus, you've been having nightmares about Bill so much recently."

"Yeah." He nodded, distracted. He was thinking about his nightmare again. The mere thought of all the things he'd just been through sent shivers down his spine. The demons and monsters he saw, what they did to people, the destroyed town, so much he didn't even recognize it, Wendy saving him twice, the creature with so many faces, and…

He couldn't even bring himself to think about the last part.

Mabel, of course, saw right through her shaking twin. "Oh, must have been a horrible one, huh?" She said, as if to sympathize, but the most her words did was bring Dipper back to reality.

"Huh? Yeah, horrible, for sure." He said distractedly, wondering if Wendy was safe and sound as much as Mabel was.

"Tell me." Mabel said, when Dipper gave her a questioning look. "What was your nightmare about? Read any of those horror books lately?" She added.

"Oh, okay." He said and finally stopped his train of thought, calming down by noticeable levels. "Now that I think about my nightmare, it was so stupid to scare anyone – well, most of it." He admittedly said, thinking about the way his nightmare ended.

"All nightmares are like that." Mabel said, smiling. "Now tell me about it." She said and then guessed. "Oh! Did you catch Robbie and Wendy kissing?" Mabel said and laughed jokingly, when she noticed the way Dipper was frozen like a thunderstruck man, rather than blushing embarrassedly. "Umm, was I right about it?" She guessed again, but did a poor job at it.

"No, it was… well, I don't know what to call it, but it seemed like some kind of end of the world." He said, and Mabel's smile froze on her face. This scared Dipper by so many levels. "Umm… Mabel…" He said in worry. "What's wrong…?"

"uhhh… nothing's wrong! I'm alright! I'm totally, just fine!" She said, making it obvious that she was not a good liar.

"Mabel, it was just a nightmare, okay? It's not like, it's gonna actually happen or something." He said, trying to calm his sister down. Mabel smiled and tried to wave the subject aside. "I know, bro, it's just… your nightmares have been a big deal recently, so…" She said and shrugged, feeling a little bit better.

"Alright, I'm glad you're just fine, Mabes." Dipper said and Mabel gave him a sleepy smile. Then his mind raced back to when he wondered if Wendy was alright.

"By the way, Mabel, what time is it?" He asked his twin and she looked at the clock on the wall. "Half past four. Why?" She said.

"Umm… it's nothing, just wanted to see how much sleep I got." He said as he realized he wasn't able to give Wendy a call to make sure, but he reassured himself that if Mabel was fine, Wendy would be fine too.

"Well, good news: you can go back to sleep and wake up six hours later!" Mabel said, smiling cheerily. "Plus, your nightmares usually don't have sequels, so your dreams are gonna be fine, too!" She added thoughtfully.

"Thanks, Mabel." He smiled. "It was horrifying, though. Not like any nightmare I've had." He said and his expression darkened. "Imagine Gravity Falls, turned upside down, totally ruined, a red sky with a huge hole…"

"Whoa, whoa, Dip-Dop, I'm gonna go back to sleep, I don't want nightmares myself." She stopped his brother, knowing that she'd be scarred for life if Dipper went on – for a particular reason.

"Okay, then. Goodnight." He said, chuckling.

"Nighty-night, Dip-Dip. Sweeet Dreeaams." She said in a singing song voice, making Dipper laugh. She then reached for the nightlight and shut it off.

"Let's hope I can even sleep at all." He said and grabbed a book to read.

"If you're reading anything, don't talk to yourself. It's so annoying." Mabel said as soon as she heard the sound of flipping papers.

"Alright, Mabel. I won't keep you up." He said and crawled under his sheets, turning on his dim nightlight to read the book he'd picked up. It was the very book that he saw Candy reading at the road trip: Darren Shan; Cirque Du Freak. He first read this book when he was nine, so it brought back so many childhood memories.

"Long time no see, Darren." He said as soon as he finished the beginning note before the first chapter.

"Dipper!" Mabel protested.

"Alright, alright! Jeez." He said dryly and began reading the first chapter of the story.

Although Dipper was quiet for the rest of the night and put the book away when he was in the middle, Mabel stayed up for a few hours, as much as the sun rose before she fell asleep. What was keeping her mind busy was what his brother had dreamed about; the end of the world.

Just like the fords told her at their lab.

* * *

"Why I'm not at the shack? Dude, it's a Sunday." Wendy said from the other side of the line.

"Sunday? Oh yeah, you're right. I just thought, since Soos is here and you're not, maybe something's wrong, or…"

"Nah, I'm just dealing with the whole high school registration and stuff." She said and a loud sigh followed, making Dipper chukle.

"Good luck at that. I wonder if my parents registered me to our school or not." Dipper tried to open a small talk, but it was way harder on the phone than in reality.

"You wish they forget, man! If they don't, you'll be forced _not_ to go to school for a year." She said and laughed.

"That's one way to look at it." Dipper said, laughing.

"Yeah. Oh, By the way…" She said and Dipper stopped laughing.

"Yes, Wendy?"

"Do you know how to fix a crashed phone? I was actually gonna ask Soos, but –"

"Yes! Yes I do!" Dipper said happily. "Didn't know your phone's crashed."

"Well, apparently I left my phone at the shack and I got back a crashed phone." Wendy said. "It's all your nerdy uncle's fault."

"Umm… Okay… so, when do we meet so I can fix your phone?" Dipper said, much happier than he sounded.

"I don't know. Maybe afternoon? I can't go another full day without my phone." Wendy said and chuckled.

"Okay, then. I'll be at the shack. See you then!" He said and Wendy hung up. Dipper then left the phone on the table near him and went somewhere no one could see him, then exploded with joy.

"Yes! She's alright!" He said, truly relieved that his nightmares had not even the slightest hint of reality…

 _Yet._

He then returned to the TV room and saw that he was in the middle of a discussion about his own birthday party.

"Dude! You can rent out the Gravity Falls High School Gym and have your party there! That place is empty all summer long." Soos gave a opinion and Mabel seemed to like it.

"The gym is a great idea, Soos." She said in accepting of the idea. Then added cheerily, "To the High School!"

Then they heard an explosion which shook the whole building. "Dipper! My face is on fire!" They heard a gruff voice, which was Stanford's voice say from a room. "I'll just be a sec." Dipper said and went to the room where the sound came from.

"Great Uncle Ford, are you okay?" Dipper said as he arrived at the room. He saw his great uncle facing the wall, apparently drying his face with a small towel. Then he turned to the twelve year old.

"Oh, yes, I'm fine." He said and put the towel away. "I just said that to make sure you were coming here quickly." He added, a small breeze of smoke rising from his skin.

"But, your face _is_ on fire." Dipper pointed at the smoke.

"Dipper, sometimes burning a small amount of trees around a big forest is necessary, to prevent a bigger accident in the forest." He explained, but Dipper didn't understand what he meant. "Umm…"

"I get it, you didn't understand. Let's just say I don't think razors are efficient enough, but I still want my face shaved." He explained simpler, and Dipper nodded when he noticed a small lighter on the table.

"Now!" Grunkle Ford said and clapped his hands. "Let's move on, shall we?" He said.

"Yeah, totally!" Dipper said.

"Okay. Remember the rift from a couple days ago?" He asked Dipper and reached in his lab coats pockets for the rift, which had a few cracks on it. "it's cracking.

"This is what Bill has been waiting for. If it breaks, it will cause reality – as we know it – to completely unravel." The old scientist explained as he led the twelve year old to a black board with drawings on it. "A hypothetical and catastrophic event I'd like to call… Fordmageddon."

Dipper stared at the drawings of what seemed to be explainations of the result of the rift shattering. Planet Earth shattering in two parts, houses crushed, a world in flames… with Bill Cipher on top of it all.

 _The end of the world._

"Wait, why _Ford_ mageddon?" Dipper asked and forgot the way this drawing looked a lot like his nightmare.

"Well…" Grunkle Ford scratched the back of his neck. "Because, it's all one person's fault, and that's someone named Ford. IF it happens." He said.

"Huh, sounds… logical."

"Yes. What we've got to do now is to go and patch the rift, prevent it from cracking. Hurry up!" He said and put the rift in a secure container and picked up all that was on the table – although he made a quick pause when he saw a small bottle of water – and ran out of the room with a quick "Follow me."

Dipper had no way, but to run with his uncle. He thought what he was going to do with Mabel's party planning or wendy's phone…

"Dipper!" Mabel stopped him. "Now that you're going on a mission with Ford, get this." She said and gave him a backpack with a walkie-talkie in it. "I've got the other one, so we can talk in our missions!" She said cheerily.

"Thanks, Mabel." Dipper said but heard his great uncle's voice.

"Dipper! I told you to be quick! It's a matter of a world being saved!" He shouted from down the hall.

"Coming! Just a second." He responded.

Meanwhile, the old scientist took out a piece of paper from his pocket and wrote a few words on it, which he would later throw in the walkway behind the vending machine for the identical old scientist downstairs to see.

' _Putting a bottle of water within my tools was not funny at all. –Cliff."_


	10. To Tame A Hand

**Chapter Ten: To Tame A Hand**

 **Author's Notes: Been busy with school since it's begun, so I didn't really have time to write much. I'll definitely make up time for the next chapters so I can write them ASAP!**

 **Enjoy!**

* * *

" _Putting a bottle of water within my tools was not funny at all. – Cliff."_

Stanford laughed at what was written in the note he'd just found in the walkway. "Oh, oh, so he realized it!" He said in the middle of his laughter, struggling to keep it low so no one in the gift shop would hear him.

The old scientist had been waiting for his clone, Clifford and his nephew to leave the shack, off to a world-saving mission since half an hour ago. He needed to make sure they would both leave, just for the sake of his anxiety wearing off, and since the periscope had been fixed, he could just be alert sitting on a chair.

Thankfully he had no worries about whether Clifford was going to make this mission or not, because, having the old scientist's memories, his clone knew all he needed to know; what to look for, where to find it, how to take it home, and so on. The only thing he didn't know if Cliff would accomplish was to tell Dipper about his apprenticeship – They highly disagreed on that one subject.

Having no worries, he put the note down and walked down the small stairway that led to the elevator. He was heading to his study room.

His study was the same dusty, old room with its special scent. Only there was one difference, and that was the big device with a large sheet on it, which was sitting in the middle of the room.

He had brought it there the night before, when Mabel began playing Dungeons, Dungeons And More Dungeons with his paper clone. It was initially supposed to be Clifford's task to do the work they had previously discussed with the copier while Stanford took Dipper out to the Crash Site, but Clifford was hesitant, so he insisted to go with Dipper in search of the adhesive, while Stanford stayed home. The old scientist could only hope this decision was right for his world saving mission.

"Ahh, here my weapon of choice is." He said and walked to the thing, removing the sheet, which was half-covering it. He smiled at what was in front of him. On the copier, there was all the things he would need. He saw five crystal bowls, a big load of plastic bags, around thirty cans of Pitt Cola – which he initially thought wasn't enough, but neither the fridge nor the vending machine had any cans remaining, so he decided to deal with what he had – and a lot of number shaped patches.

Even in case he forgot what he was going to do, the tools on the copier spoke for themselves. He had another good load of experiments to do.

The old scientist was going to create backup just in case something with his clone's mission went wrong and the rift shattered and they had to save the day. They needed to be prepared for the worst.

At first, what they were going to do was to create more clones and make a horde of Fords, which was actually a great idea, according to both Fords, but they then found another idea as well. They could copy body parts and use them against whatever the enemy they would be up against was.

And that was what Stanford was going to work on…

* * *

Dipper followed behind his great uncle into the borders of the small town. The two were walking to the hills, where the cliffs and the bridge connecting them were – at least, that's what the twelve year old had guessed. Dipper had no clue what they were looking for, and despite what he expected, the old scientist leading him was not speaking a word either. That could be because of anxiety, but Great Uncle Ford acted pretty calm when they were going to Bill-Proof Dipper's mind, even though it was actually a matter of life and death of a world.

So why he would act so anxious now, Dipper didn't know.

He looked at his great uncle again, who was carrying a small, but seemingly safe briefcase with the cracked rift in it. He was clutching the handle of the briefcase tightly, which was enormous of him. He also walked much faster than the twelve year old, even though he was probably carrying around twenty pounds of tools in lab coat pockets. And that was why Dipper would be left behind every few minutes.

The old scientist would usually yell at him for being left behind so often. He seemed to be in a big rush, in a much bigger rush than Dipper thought he'd ever see him be. The Ford he knew believed in keeping your cool, even through the most stressing times.

"Dipper!" _Oh boy, here it goes again._ "Keep up with me, my boy!" the old scientist said and began walking again. Dipper ran the small distance between him and his uncle, again wondering why he was acting so different.

* * *

Meanwhile, Stanford was close to figuring out the way to copy a hand and control it as some sort of weapon, an idea which Cliff had come up with the night before. Still, neither one had a clue on how to control the disembodied hands, especially Stanford, who was in charge of figuring it out. He had been working on few ideas and theories around the subject for almost ten minutes – which he considered a short period of time – and he was already close to figuring out the answer to his question.

One of his ideas that made the most sense was to find a way to stop the hand from moving, then undo it. There was a slim chance for the hand to act differently afterwards.

Of course, the thought of the hand obeying him after undoing the paralyzing was too much to think of, but he needed to find out if it made the hand act any different, because if it happened to be so, he could vary his way a little bit and he could get the hand to obey him after a few more experiments. Every little bit of progress was worth giving his idea a try.

The only problem for him was to find out – rather _remember_ from his old, biology classes – the way to temporarily paralyze the hand. It could work if he pressured one of its veins, but he just couldn't bring himself to do what he knew would be painful to a copy of his _own_ hand, so he put that solution aside. _It could still be a last resort._

He also knew that an electric shock could knock someone out, and/or bring them back to consciousness. So why wouldn't it be the same as the hand being paralyzed?

He found a solution. He remembered putting an old, small shocker into an old box in his lab two days ago when he was cleaning his lab and organizing some of his belongings, so if he could find it now and use it, he could have his theory experimented.

The old scientist didn't really have a good history with shockers, which was because of it ruining one of his handiworks – which used electricity – as well as an incident that happened with Fiddleford, when they were studying a creature. Stanford accidentally gave Fiddleford the electric shock, instead of the creature, which blew him across the room. The mechanic hit a shelf on the wall, where Stanford kept valuable tools, causing them to fall and break – He later had his colleague pay him for the damage caused, even though it wasn't initially his fault.

Also, Stanley used to prank him with a tiny shocker that looked like a pack of chewing gums. ("Want one, Sixer?" Stanley used to say.)

Even though he had been _traumatized_ by those devices, he still kept those two shockers, hoping that someday, one of them would come in handy.

And, he assumed, now that time had come.

So he headed downstairs to pick up the old box with the shocker – alongside with many other things – in it.

* * *

After half an hour, he was still searching for his old box.

He'd entered the lab, not remembering which locker he'd put the box inside of, so he had to search all of the lockers for the box. What made it even worse was, that he couldn't tell the boxes apart, so he just had to pull out every box he found, open it, only to find that it was not the box he wanted.

He didn't keep track of how many times he sighed in the process.

What was not as simple, though, was that he was actually in a rush, because he needed to get a conclusion from his experiments before his clone came back to the shack with Dipper, or else, he'd either be too late to conclude, or he'd be too late to save the world…

At that moment, he found the box he was looking for.

"Ahh, finally found it!" The old scientist said with a sigh, looking at the box which had a variety of old things in it; The mind control tie, a few pieces from the portal, an old lucky charm, some of Fiddleford's used sets of Banjo strings, and lastly, his shocker. Wasting not even a second, he closed the box and went inside the elevator to begin experimenting.

But as soon as he remembered he had a lot of experimenting to do, all of his enthusiasm for the experimenting was gone. Not because he hated to experiment, but because he was experimenting to get ready for a certain event that had a noticeable chance of happening.

"God, why did I send _Cliff_ with Dipper? What if he steps in a puddle of water…?" He said to himself, now realizing what mistake he had made.

He decided not to let bad thoughts into his mind and get ready for the experiments. He needed to keep his cool and focus on his own task, not what the other one could be doing at the moment. So he pressed the button to go upstairs, where a copier awaited him…

* * *

"Ah-ha!" Said the old scientist as he caught the freshly copied hand inside a bowl. He kept the bowl on the floor, locking the hand inside, with as much force as he had in his right hand, while his other hand searched for the shocker's handle, to try it on the third hand inside the bowl.

Lucky for him, the shocker wasn't too far away from where he'd caught the hand, so he easily reached it while keeping hold of the bowl tightly on the floor. What he needed was to get the shocker close and remove the bowl, then give the hand an electric shock in an instant. He also had to revive it sometime later, but first things first.

When he came to remove the bowl, the hand took the millisecond of freedom it had and broke free forcefully, surprising the old man.

In the blink of an eye, the hand was on the walls of the study, moving with help of its six fingers. For now, it was too high to be in Stanford's reach, but he'd soon catch it with the bowl. He grabbed the said item, went up to where the hand was and punched the wall to get its attention.

The hand stopped going up, and as Stanford expected, began climbing downwards. The old scientist was ready for the hand to get in his reach. He was so ready for it he even trash talked it. "Come here! I dare you, worthless paper-hand!"

The hand, obviously, heard no words and kept on climbing downwards. When it came low enough, Stanford caught it and was ready to give it an electrical shock.

He then removed the bowl and instantly pressed the shocker on the back of the hand, making the hand fall down as soon as he removed the shocker. Stanford picked up the now "Knocked out" hand.

"It's time to revive you, hand." He said quietly and put the hand on the table nearby. Then he put the shocker on it and gave it a brief pulse.

But nothing happened.

Not only the hand didn't come back to life, the study was filled with an annoying smell. A smell he could assume was… very similar to burnt bacon.

He instantly knew what it was. The strong pulse must have burnt the flesh of hand from the inside.

But that raised a question; If the hand was made of paper, why would it smell like burnt bacon? Was it actually made of flesh, after all?

Since the hand was causing so much smell, Stanford put his thoughts away and opened up one of the thirty-odd cans of soda he'd brought to the study. He needed to get _rid_ of this hand as soon as he could.

He was still worried, though. What if he couldn't conclude his experiments on time?

He could guess the only way to make it easier was not to think of other possibilities, although he kept in mind to be quick.

He opened the can of soda, melted the hand in it, then went on to copy another hand, hoping he could make this one revived…

* * *

 **Author's Notes: I split this chapter in two, simply because it was too long, but I was initially going to write up to when Stanford concludes his experiments in this chapter. Guess it has to wait awhile.**

 **On the bright side, the next chapter should be done as soon as I finish working on a group class presentation. It'd due in a week ;)**

 **I hope you've enjoyed this chapter! Stay tuned for To Tame A Hand II :)**

 **-H80NP**


	11. To Tame A Hand II

**Chapter Eleven: To Tame A Hand II**

 **Author's Notes: Needless to say, school *sigh***

 **This was initially gonna be part of the last chapter, but I thought it'd be too long, so all I had to do was type it out from what I'd written on paper, but school didn't even let me do** _ **that**_ **… Dammit, no need for me to explain this stuff.**

 **Anyways, I really hope you enjoy this one as well!**

* * *

"Oh, no. This is indeed going nowhere." Said the old scientist as he threw another empty can of soda away at the small pile of other empty cans of Pitt Cola.

Counting the cans he had at the pile – considering the one can he decided to drink himself – he'd failed to revive six hands after his experiments, which was, of course, a frustrating result. One which he knew was obviously denying the use of the shocker.

So Stanford sat down on a chair and began to think of something else.

Not only he hadn't achieved any results from his huge pile of experiments, he'd also messed his own study up. One of the corners was littered with seven Pitt Cola cans, the carpet on the floor was mostly wet – and sticky – because of Stanford using the soda on the hands that failed to revive. He also had a gigantic copier in the center of the study, which made the place seem somewhat out of order. The table with the required tools on it was also in a place that seemed like a bad place. Luckily neither the patches nor the plastic bags were soaked in soda, so he could get to use them when it was time. He'd also broken one crystal bowl – as he would have expected – and, wearing his thick boots, he didn't see any point in cleaning them, because they couldn't hurt him in any way.

Plus, now that he'd realized how much pain he had been coping with without knowing, he refused to stand up.

"Ugh. I sure am getting old." He said, his back aching horribly. "I hope Cliff can do better than I can…"and then remembered of the fact that this idea of controlling a hand was initially his clone's.

He felt pretty mad at Clifford for making him waste his time and energy on something so idiotic and far-fetched. Who would think a copied paper hand that almost choked him to death mere days ago could be controllable? He couldn't even revive the hand by the shocker, let alone _control_ it.

He thought that maybe he just had to wait for his clone to arrive from his mission. Maybe he just needed to switch to plan B, maybe…

No. The hand being controlled was feasible. He needed to come up with a way to make his clone's idea work. He knew it was possible, he knew there was a way. He just needed to figure it out. All he needed was some time to find his answer.

His mind then raced off to his own clone. How was his mission going? At that moment he wished he'd thought of some sort of communication during their mission. He could have used a pair of walkie-talkies, and ask him what was up every once in a while. Even though the idea seemed childish to him, but how else would they be able to communicate?

Then he realized that they couldn't communicate that way either, because Clifford wasn't alone, and his sidekick didn't want to know who his "uncle" was talking to.

 _Then how would he realize if the mission went wrong?_

He was anxious again. He'd been trying to keep that certain thought at the back of his mind, because even attempting to imagine what would happen in that case sent shivers down his aching spine. He couldn't believe what huge responsibility was upon his shoulders, let alone fulfill his duty to keep Bill away from their dimension. Who would have known that the same being he once considered his "muse" could turn out to be his – and the world's for that matter – largest enemy? How did his research for weirdness become a threat to the universe? How could his simple aim to find anomalies turn into a struggle to keep his own planet from being destroyed?

The old scientist quickly found himself sweating in fear of what might happen.

"No. This isn't getting me anywhere." Said the old scientist and stood up from behind the table. He needed to take a small break and get his mind off his responsibilities for a few minutes, or else, he'd crack under the anxiety.

He couldn't think about the hands and ways to control them. That would only bring him more confusion. Also, it wasn't worthy of him putting his time on when he didn't have a single clue on how to make it.

So he figured out he might as well put the shocker back at its box and take the box downstairs, where it initially was. He could also take a look at other things in the lab that could keep him busy for a short period of time. Stanford could use some relaxation, maybe some of his old music records could help him relax. He also had a couple of records that belonged to Fiddleford – he was obsessed with The Eagles and Rush at that time. He'd forgotten to take most of his belongings with him when he quit, he only took his Cubic's Cube and Banjo.

The thought of the night his colleague quit their so-thought "huge project" made him feel guilty again. He'd possibly ruined Fiddleford's life for good, so much that whenever he tried to talk or ask questions about him, everyone changed the subject. He wondered how his old friend was really doing, but all he could think of was a mind-erasing maniac who would kidnap people and send them back with a blank memory.

 _Nothing like the ambitious, nerdy engineer he used to know._

Knowing that _he_ was the reason, he couldn't help the feeling of guilt being relived.

But he brushed the thought aside and remembered that he was going to pack the shocker in its box again. He started with other things he'd also taken out when he was going to find the shocker, though. There were lots of those things. He put the small pieces of the portal inside first, then placed the used Banjo strings upon the pieces of the portal, the smaller things such as his old lucky charm that his Irish friend – not that he had many friends, anyway – had given him in his college. He glanced at the charm and smiled, wondering what _he_ could be up to at the moment. He also regret why he didn't take this charm with him through the portal.

Then he found something; his mind controlling tie.

"Ahh, my first invention." He said and took the tie and looked at the microchips which controlled the person wearing it. A lot of memories were relived in his mind. Assembling those chips and hiding them perfectly, especially on a few ties, was definitely not easy, but he'd had fun doing the work of that device, as well as testing it on Fiddleford – he needed to remember to turn the tie off when he was done, especially if he was going to the bathroom.

He also remembered of the feeling of joy and pride he'd felt when he realized that his handiwork worked properly. Never would he have thought he could control someone just by a simple tie, but he had come to the solution, and it was definitely something to be proud of, whether it was just a simple chip or not. He'd give anything to feel the same pride again – except a hand shake with Bill.

Stanford then decided to put it inside the box, but stopped when he had a sudden thought.

The mind controlling tie had a rather simple mechanism to control a person's mind – at least to Stanford, who had calculated his way through a maze of demons at some dimension he never wanted to go back to. (Author: No need to put any thought on this, dear reader.) So maybe the old scientist could build more of them.

 _But why?_ He questioned himself. _Why would there be any need for more mind controlling ties?_

Maybe he could make a mechanism to control many people at once? He could use them on clones – if he copied any other ones. But imagining himself controlling so many clones of himself at once and them moving under his control made him feel bad about himself. Maybe it was because of him imagining the clones walking like zombies, yelling 'Braaaaiiinnss!' but he was pretty sure it was because of him not wanting to be a puppeteer… _like Bill._ He wanted to be a leader of a passionate, hardworking team of _himselves._

But he might as well be able to control other things by the tie(s). It might come in handy with a few animals or creatures, but he couldn't imagine the Gremloblin with a red and blue tie round his neck, saying hello in Japanese. Inserting the chips into them was another option, though. He could put the chip inside a bird and it would – theorically – obey him.

But it was all theory, and he had to test the idea on something to find out.

If only it worked, he could build a horde of weird creatures, each with one advantage caused by their weirdness, and use the horde against Bill if he ever came to their dimension. Not only animals, he could get _anything_ to be controlled by him that way…

Even disembodied hands.

"Eureka!" Stanford suddenly said in ecstasy when the answer finally hit him. He could place a microchip in a hand and see if it obeyed what he ordered it. Maybe even put a tiny sensor and it just might work.

Stanford opened his journal and began to write his mind down on the aged papers…

* * *

"Okay, hand," Stanford said aloud with the black, master tie around his neck, looking at the six fingered hand with a microchip put inside, waiting for an order – unless Stanford had messed something up. "Sit." He ordered, remembering the way their father treated their short-lived dog – who was tragically taken under by a truck. The hand fell to the floor immediately, holding on all its six-fingers. Stanford felt that success was mere seconds away.

"Shake." He said, trying not to grin wide in excitement from what the hand would do. The hand then jumped up immediately. Stanford almost ran out of its way instinctively, but the hand landed right on his tight hand, held it…

And shaked.

"Wow. Fascinating." He said, smiling ear to ear with pride and joy. He was feeling the same as when he invented the mind control tie. He then thought if he should tell the hand to let go, and just as he nearly confirmed it, the hand _actually_ let go.

"That's quite strange." He thought, then tried to order the hand by his mind.

 _Now, Go to the chair to your right._ He thought in his head and waited for a response from the copied hand.

And the hand went to the leg of the chair.

 _Perfect! Now, climb up the chair._ He ordered, but seeing the rough movement of the hand, he added, _Gently_.

The hand climbed the chair successfully, then stood right on the top, again, waiting for an order.

Stanford was proud of what he'd done, but also confused if this would end well.

 _Okay, now come over here._ He ordered, wanting to put the hand in his pocket when he took the box downstairs.

The hand came to him and Stanford grabbed it and put it in his outer pocket, so it wouldn't get too warm. _Don't move._ He ordered again and looked for the shocker to put it inside the box.

The small shocker was soon inside the box and he was about to close the box to take to the lab, when he found the lucky charm from his Irish friend on the table.

He then put the lucky charm inside his other pocket and picked up the box to take downstairs.

* * *

"Dipper, my boy!" Dipper heard his uncle call out for him again, even though he was following only one or two steps behind.

"I'm right here, Uncle Ford." The twelve year old said, but before he got to finish his sentence, his uncle stopped still and held out his hand. "Hand me a compass, Dipper."

The pre-teen who didn't expect to be asked for anything, except to keep up with his uncle, took his backpack off with slight surprise. "Okay, but _why_ a compass?" He asked while looking inside his backpack for the said object.

"Let me ask you something, Dipper…" The scientist began to ask, while Dipper fixed his attention on his uncle. "…Have you used a compass ever since you came to this town?" Dipper shook his head in response. "No. Why?"

"If you had, you would have noticed that the arrows don't show the right direction at all." He stated. It didn't take long for Dipper to understand his uncle's words, and when he did, he was confused. How on earth could a compass not show the right direction with nothing to mess the magnetism up?

"Now, if you have a compass, hand it to me." Great Uncle Ford said again.

Shocked, Dipper looked through his backpack again. After a few seconds, he found the compass in a side pocket of the backpack. It was an old and rusty one. "Here." He said and gave the object to his uncle, who didn't open it right away. "Can you tell me what direction North is, based by the direction of the sun?" He asked his nephew, who, of course, know how to locate the four directions. Knowing that it was before noon, the sun had to be more tilted to East, which would be where it rose every morning. Therefore, North would be to the left of where east was.

He turned towards where he thought North should be, and pointing at the horizon, he said; "Considering it's before noon, North should be this way." He said, but grew unsure again. "…Right?"

"Correct." Great Uncle Ford said, smiling. "You also know that a compass works with the Earth's magnetic system. If there's a magnet near it, the arrow would tilt to that direction." He explained, and again, it was nothing new to the twelve year old. "I understand, but what's your point?"

"Let me show you what the compass shows." He said and opened the compass. "Which way was north again?"

Dipper showed North with his hand.

"Yes. Now, look here." The old scientist said and presented the compass to his nephew. Dipper looked at it, only to find that the compass was showing a totally different direction.

"No. Way." Dipper said with his eyes round, looking at the arrow. "Would it be the same when you rotate it? Maybe the arrow's just stuck." He thought and his Uncle Ford rotated the compass, and the arrow didn't stray the "wrong" direction it was showing by one degree.

"but… how…"

"That's the important question." Great uncle Ford said and closed the compass, wearing a smile which Dipper couldn't read through. "Back in the day, people used to label this land as 'cursed' or 'evil', or even simply 'weird' because of their compasses not showing the right direction. They thought it must be some sort of evil force in the town, but they couldn't have possibly imagined what the true answer was." He explained.

These words sounded familiar to Dipper. He thought he'd heard them somewhere else, but he couldn't remember where.

But he shifted his attention back to the compass.

"But, there's nothing magnetic near it, is there?" He asked, quite confused.

"No, there isn't. But _does_ it have to be near the compass to attract the arrows to itself?" He asked, "Or a strong, yet relatively far away magnetic object would also do?" He added, raising an eyebrow. This made Dipper think about the problem.

"I _guess_ it would, but…" He said, but ran out of words. "I… I don't know."

"You will in a few minutes." The old scientist said and began walking again, the compass in his hand. "Now come, we're not far from where we're heading to." He said to his nephew.

With over a thousand questions in his mind, Dipper followed after his uncle who'd left him with loads of questions, none answered.

He noticed the old scientist fixing his direction of walking based on the compass every few seconds. Dipper assumed that whatever this "Strong, relatively far away magnetic object" was, they were heading its way. This was quite relieving for him since most of his questions were about the identity of the magnetic object.

But something seemed awfully familiar about the way Great Uncle ford used the compass to correct his direction towards where they were heading. There was someone else who did this, he just didn't quite remember who…

He heard a muffled noise from his backpack. He instantly knew what it was; the walkie-talkie. Mabel was talking.

He reached for where his walkie-talkie was supposed to be and pulled it out. Then he listened to what Mabel was saying, but he didn't quite understand what she was trying to say.

"to… dydop… the gy… think… high-school… aweso… expect… 'ver." Was basically what he heard.

"Did you two take walkie talkies with you?" Great Uncle Ford asked, smiling simply.

"She basically threw me the backpack with my walkie-talkie in it when I was following after you, but yeah." He said, sounding a bit unenthusiastic about it, while his great uncle was.

"It's a nice idea to use these on a mission. I would have tried it with Fiddleford if I could." He said, smiling, then facing front again, while Dipper replied to his sister.

"I'm going through a rough patch, Mabel! We'll talk when I get back." He said to the walkie-talkie – pretty loudly, so he made sure Mabel would hear him clearly. He heard no response afterwards, except for some more noise and Mabel's voice in the background. He couldn't figure out her words, so he tried to get the walkie-talkie to work again by shaking it.

"Oh, man!" He said when he didn't get a result.

"We're there." Dipper heard the old scientist say, and completely forgot about the walkie-talkie. He put it in his backpack.

"We are?" He said, enthusiastically waiting.

Great Uncle Ford looked at the compass, then handed it to Dipper. Dipper noticed how the arrow was spinning wildly.

 _Even_ this _seemed familiar to him._

"This is what happens when you use a compass on the North pole." He said. "Theoretically." Of course, this wasn't the reason the twelve year old felt like this was familiar.

"It's because the compass is on the tip of the magnetic system in that moment, so it spins between directions it finds in the magnetic field. It also happens here, because we're _standing on_ the magnetic object I told you about earlier." He explained, and his explanation was enough to ring a bell for Dipper.

"I've written about this place in my journal, but I tried to keep it more of a secret by not referring to its identity, but this is where I took the material to build my portal from, with help from Fiddleford." He said, maybe on purpose, to make it clearer for Dipper where they were standing.

" _CRASH SITE OMEGA."_ They both said at the same time, Dipper with his eyes round and wearing a wide grin, and his Uncle with a proud smile.

"Really!? I've spent so many days outside looking for this crash site!" Dipper said, which got the old scientist taken aback.

"You should be glad you didn't locate it. It's nowhere to go to alone." He said, with a shade of seriousness in his voice.

"Of course I wouldn't go alone. I'd take Mabel and Soos with me for sure." He said, then thought, "And Wendy too," He added and slightly blushed.

"that's better, but still not safe enough. Of course all of the aliens have been dead for millions of years…"

"ALIENS?" Dipper shrieked.

"Oh, I forgot. I was about to tell you about the identity of this crash site and how it happened."

"ALIENS!" Dipper shrieked again with excitement, but cleared his throat and tried to seem more professional. "Uh-hmm. I'm all ears." He said.

"Good." Great Uncle Ford said and began to explain the history of the ancient UFO, upon which they were standing…

* * *

 **Author's Notes: Since there might be some of you who haven't read the journal (Deg Degs to a certain reader** ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) **), Crash Site Omega is how Stanford referred to the UFO in his journals, in order to keep from revealing the existence of the spacecraft. (It's not that big of a spoiler, I swear XD)**

 **I'll start working on the next chapter during the history period tomorrow! :D If you know what I mean.**

 **-H80NP**


	12. Crash Site Omega

**Chapter Twelve: Crash Site Omega**

 **Author's Notes: This chapter's quite long, but I'm sure where I wanna go with the next chapter, so it must be done soon!**

 **I hope you enjoy this chapter!**

* * *

Clifford landed on the floor of the spaceship from the last step of the ladder he'd installed upon the entry himself – so many years ago. He was quite surprised the steps hadn't rotten or gotten torn or broken apart by now. He then pulled out his second journal from one of his pockets, just as he heard his nephew landing on the ground as well.

"This is so cool!" Dipper said and then Clifford heard the flash of a camera.

"Cool indeed." He said, looking through the pages of his journal. "I used to study the languages these scripts are written in. You took pictures of those scripts, I assume." He added and looked at his nephew, who was following right behind his back. He nodded. "Those aren't really picture-worthy. I even wrote in my journals using this script." And he went back to finding a specific entry in his journal.

"That's why I found it interesting, that it's actually some sort of alien handwriting. It's so cool!" He said enthusiastically.

"I will teach you how to read those scripts if you're so interested in it, but, my boy, we have much more amazing items to look for today." He said and found the page he was looking for, then showed it to the twelve year old. "Such as this unearthly substance."

Dipper took the journal and read the notes about what his uncle had called the Alien saw a drawing of a hexagonal object with a liquid substance inside it, and a smaller drawing that seemed to be the same hexagon, but closed instead. At the other page he saw another drawing, of a planet broken in halves, being brought together by the adhesive.

"This adhesive can glue any two things together; from two pieces of wood to a planet." Clifford explained to his nephew. "just one drop of this adhesive is enough to seal the rift for good. If we can find the glue and make the rift glued, it won't break even if it's fallen off a cliff." He stated. "But, it's just theory. I didn't say that." He then added and took the journal. "We need to go a couple feet below. Did I give you a magnet gun?" He said as he put the journal back in his pocket.

"Yes, but it's so heavy!" Dipper said and pulled out the magnet gun.

The old scientist pretended not to hear the last part. "Good. We need to use our guns and go down this column." He said and pointed at a huge, metal column in front of them. "Follow me!" He said and jumped at the column, used his magnet gun to stick to it and went down in a spiral shaped path, same as his identical self had done hundreds of times, thirty years ago.

The underground floor was, of course, dark. So he needed to find his flashlight, both to have vision at the underground floor, and so Dipper could see where he was.

But he seemed to have trouble finding his flashlight.

 _Come on, I'm sure I put it in here…_ he thought as he checked his inner pockets, where he'd usually put such tools in. The old scientist had no idea how far he could have scared his nephew.

"Great Uncle Ford! A-A-Are you-"

"Yes, my boy. I'm safe and sound. All I need is to find the flashlight to show you- Here it is!" He said as he finally felt his flashlight. He instantly turned it on.

"Your turn!" He said and pointed the flashlight upwards. "Say 'Ha!' it helps!" He added and waited for his nephew to join him.

But he didn't hear or see any sign of him actually jumping for a few seconds, until he finally heard something.

"Little help?"

The old scientist then remembered of his identical self's first try, as well as Fiddleford's, then regret how he hadn't given any advice to him before jumping.

* * *

"Something up, dawg?" Soos asked as he stopped by the Chiu's house, looking at a very thoughtful Mabel. "You thinking so deep, dude."

"Huh, me?" The preteen girl said as she stopped her train of thoughts. She hadn't even noticed that they had stopped. "Nothing. Just remembered of… umm…" She noodled around with her hair for a moment while thinking whether she should tell his big friend about what was bothering her or not.

"Hey. Don't worry dude, I'm sure your friends are totally gonna-"

"Dipper's _nightmare_." She said in a low voice. "He had one last night." She added.

"But, I didn't hear you dudes talking about nightmares this morning." Soos said innocently. Mabel didn't seem to be bugged by the fact that their big man-child had overheard the in the morning, either. She was more in thought than to notice such a detail.

"He woke up midnight." She explained with a shade of dread in her voice. "He woke me up too, and he told me about it." She added.

"That's nothing to worry about, Hambone," He said and smiled at the girl in her Happy Birthday sweater. "You know Dipper has a really overactive imagination – just like me. Plus, he's been through a lot lately, you know." He added and made Mabel smile as well. "whatever he dreamed of, don't let it bother you. Let's just give your friends some invites, huh?" He reminded her of her original plans, and thankfully, it didn't disappoint the man-child to make her beam up and feel better.

"Of course! What can be better than Candy and Grenda at my birthday party? Let's go!"

"We're already there. Give 'em those invites, dawg!" He said and Mabel noticed the Chiu's house right next to them. She felt so happy she couldn't help but to jump out of the truck and to her friend's house.

Soos, of course, stayed behind the wheel and watched Mabel run to the front door of the house. Her two friends showed up at the front door, and she showed them the invites. So far, so good.

But, by what he saw, things didn't go as fine afterwards. He saw the three of them sharing looks of frustration and sorrow, then have a group hug and Mabel leaving towards the truck with her walkie-talkie in her hand.

Then Mabel sat at the right seat of the truck and sighed sadly. She seemed so sad it even struck Soos.

For a few minutes, the two were both silent, Mabel in thought of how horrible her day was going and Soos in thought of what to do so Mabel could feel better.

Then the handyman finally broke the silence, "Hey, don't let it get to ya, dude. Whatever it is, can't be worse than my twelfth birthday, right?" but it didn't help him at all to comfort his little friend. "Am I right? You do know what I'm talking about, right?" He said again, but Mabel seemed to be too sad to respond to him.

But she was also drowning in thought again. She didn't dwell on how horrible her day was happening to be, because whatever she tried to think of, she'd soon be thinking of what she'd been told by the Fords, and how Dipper's nightmare seemed to be a glimpse of the horrible possibility of his uncles failing – what their work was about, she didn't know. What if the nightmare was somehow a glimpse of the future?

Never had she taken the supernatural so seriously before. She had never thought about it when it wasn't happening at the moment or when she could be busy doing something other than drawing some creature they'd seen. But the matter of a world ending was definitely more serious than a bunch of gnomes. _Much_ more serious than a bunch of gnomes.

Again, she was thinking of how her day had gone just against her plans. She thought if this could be part of the process of the world ending, everything being horrible to everyone. She wondered if her own brother was enjoying his mission at all. Would he and Great Uncle Ford(s) be the saviors of the world? Or would everything go wrong and whatever happened to Dipper in his nightmare would happen in reality?

She didn't even know what his brother had seen in his nightmares, but thinking about the world coming to an end, like she'd _heard_ happening in horror films, chilled her bones in fear.

"So, where do we go, dude?" She suddenly heard Soos' voice and was snapped back to reality from her thoughts. "Oh, I… I don't…" She began to say, but felt like she was unable to talk as soon as she was reminded of how summer was ending, how high school was probably much less exciting than she'd thought and how two of her best friends couldn't be in her birthday party. She felt miserable again for it all.

Soos seemed to understand her, since he gave her a tissue. "It's okay if you wanna cry, dude. I know what it feels like." He said comfortingly, and Mabel got the tissue. She simply stared at it for a second, before she sobbed and covered her nose with the tissue.

Soos waited patiently for Mabel to cry herself out, patting her back. He didn't know what to do, since he'd never comforted anyone when they were sad, so he just waited until the twelve year old was done.

It took Mabel a few minutes until she sniffed and asked Soos where to put the wet tissue.

"Put it in the tiny trashcan next to your seat, dawg." He said and pointed at a small can, which Mabel hadn't noticed before.

"Oh, didn't know you had a trash can in your truck, Soos." She said as she put the tissue in the can, which was almost full of empty popcorn bags. "When did you put it there?"

"I've had this in my truck for two years. It goes unnoticed most of the time." He explained and started up the engine. "So, where do we head now?"

"I don't know… the shack, maybe?" She said hesitantly. "I'm kinda hungry."

"Maybe we could get some ice cream, y'know." Soos offered her, then chuckled. "Actually, I'm hungry too, Hambone. What do you think?"

"Why not?" Mabel said, much more enthusiastic than mere seconds ago. "How can I say no to that? Onwards and upwards!" She added and Soos chuckled.

"Nice! You got your seatbelt on?"

* * *

"Whew! Thought I was gonna be stuck up there for the rest of my life!" Dipper said and wiped his brow. He'd just been saved by his uncle, who was checking his pockets for some of his accessories at the moment. "Thanks, Great Uncle Ford." Dipper said.

"You're welcome, my boy." He said and smiled. "Fiddleford got stuck up there once as well. He pointed the magnet gun upwards, instead of towards the column, so he was stuck to the ceiling – exactly what happened to you. That's why I could get you out of the situation you were facing."

Dipper felt slightly ashamed of himself for making that mistake and causing his uncle some trouble, no matter how little it was. Clifford seemed to notice it from his nephew's expression.

"Don't dwell on it, my boy. The first time I came down here, I made the same mistake too. It was nothing pleasant." He added.

"Really?" Dipper said, clearly shocked.

"Everyone makes mistakes, my boy. And this has not been my biggest one." He explained, thinking of a certain, triangular being and how he – Stanford – used to think of him as a friend.

But he then noticed where they had come upon in the meantime. "We're near where I first found the adhesive. We just need to get past this small walkway, and we will find where the glue should be. Follow after me, Dipper." He explained and took off into a big passage, with the twelve year old following not far after.

Dipper noticed some skeletons around the passage, some of which still seemed to be sitting on their chairs. The skeletons did seem to be the long-dead aliens' remains, since they were in an alien spacecraft, but this somehow scared Dipper.

What if there were alien ghosts in the UFO and they could haunt them? Those aliens were a civilized species, so the thought of them having spiritual-lives made sense.

He decided to share his fears with his uncle. "umm… Uncle Ford…" He began to speak his mind, "…Nevermind." but decided against it. Hell, even if those aliens _did_ have a spiritual form, and even if they were still in this spacecraft, not anywhere else, they would give up on haunting the place after billions of years of having no visitors – except for a few crows, who'd built their nest in the spacecraft. Plus, if there were such ghosts (the sound of an alien ghost seemed ridiculous to Dipper now) really existed, Great Uncle Ford would have written about them, or warned him of their existence. So why worry?

They then reached a circular door with a triangular shape on it – which, Dipper thought, looked much like the portal that used to be in the underground lab. Clifford read the inscriptions on top of the door to make sure they were in the right place.

"Look at the scripts above the doors, Dipper." He said to his nephew, who looked at the said scripts right after. "It says 'storage room', which is where I first located the adhesive, thirty-odd years ago. It should still be right there." He added, and opened the doors from the middle afterwards. Dipper went in right after his uncle, leaving the doors open.

"Everything here's been busted up for centuries. Go on and press any key, flip any switch, use any device…" Clifford said, knowing fully well that Dipper had to be curious enough to want to try every button in his sight.

And Dipper did. He pressed a button a few times, thinking what it was supposed to do, if it were still functioning. He then flipped a switch next to him, and again, nothing happened.

"This place used to be heavily secured by many different types of droids, millions of years ago. Right now, everything is defunct." The old scientist stated. "Just as defunct as all of those buttons you touched."

"So, we have nothing to worry about, right, Uncle Ford?" Dipper asked with a shade of fear in his voice.

"Absolutely nothing. I've been here countless times thirty years ago, and have never come across a security droid that actually worked. I did study a few of the defunct ones I found, though." The old scientist assured his nephew while walking further and further into the storage facility.

"You _studied_ them?" Dipper asked curiously. "How do they function? Can you tell me more about them?" He added, clearly excited to hear more about the droids.

"I would give you a good deal of information about those droids if we weren't this close to finding the adhesive, and it takes major priority at the moment." Clifford said, bumming his nephew in the worst way. "Actually, we're right there! See the holes on that panel, my boy?" He said and pointed at a certain panel in front of the pair. Dipper nodded in response. "What are those?"

"They contain loads of hexagonal metal containers – like the one I'd drawn on my journal and showed you earlier. The adhesive has to be inside a few ones of them, so we will have to load all of them up and check them for the adhesive." He said and loaded up the hexagonal containers. So, Dipper walked to where the other whole was, across the panel, and loaded the pieces up the same way his uncle had.

He then tried to open one of the containers to check what was inside it, but didn't find a place to crack it open. The entire container seemed to be one, solid piece. _What kind of a container could it be, then?_ He thought, then went to his uncle to ask him.

Then he noticed how the old scientist wasn't even cracking the pieces open. He was simply picking them up, then tossing them aside, as if he'd denied the possibility of the adhesive being inside them.

"Umm, Uncle Ford, what are you doing, exactly?" He asked his uncle, unsurely.

"I'm checking these for the adhesive." He answered his nephew, straightforwardly.

"How?" The twelve year old asked, quite confused.

"By how heavy it is. If it contains the adhesive, it's a bit heavier." He explained as he threw another piece aside. "Plus, the glue – by a very high chance – eats away on the layers of the container, so you can see it if it's inside the container." He added.

"Oh," was Dipper's only response. "What does the adhesive look like, anyway?"

"It's a glowing, pink substance, but has a shade of green as well. It looks somewhat iridescent." He described the glue, then went back to his own job of looking for the adhesive.

Dipper also went back to his own side of the panel. He then started to check the pieces by their weight and toss them away if they had the same weight. He then went on to the next ones and so on.

The rest of the process was spent in silence, not a voice being heard. The only sound that could be heard was the clinging sound of them tossing the hexagonal pieces aside. This was not as interesting to Dipper as they'd thought it would be. He wondered if his uncle was feeling the same way.

After a few minutes of not finding anything, the twelve year old got bored. But he couldn't think of anything else to do, either. Maybe he could talk to Mabel with his walkie-talkie? But he couldn't, not from one hundred fifty yards beneath the hill. He couldn't talk to his great uncle, either. He seemed much more serious about his job of finding the adhesive than Dipper did. He then thought of trying to make some shapes with the pieces he'd thrown away, just to pass time. He couldn't do anything else, anyway.

Meanwhile, Clifford was in thought, and it wasn't the thought of the consequences they'd have to face if his work failed. He was thinking of what his identical self – Stanford – had asked him to do, other than to seal the rift. Stanford had been thinking about making Dipper stay in Gravity Falls and become his sidekick instead of going to school, like every other kid his age did. Clifford thought that if he was going to tell Dipper about it, now would be the best time, but he wasn't for the idea. He didn't feel it was the right thing to do. The two of the kids had a long, wonderful life in front of them, in which they could be by one another's side. He'd hate himself if he separated them in any way, for any reason.

"Umm, Uncle Ford…" He was drawn out of his thoughts at hearing his nephew. "Isn't this…" Clifford turned back, only to see his nephew holding a hexagonal piece of metal with a glowing, pink substance on it. "…the adhesive?"

"You _did_ it, my boy! This is it!" Clifford said and burst with excitement and relief, forgetting how badly he was stressed out about the apprenticeship. "Now, _this_ is picture-worthy! Take out your camera-" He said, but was cut by a high-pitched, alien noise.

Clifford was fully alert and picked up his magnet gun as soon as they heard that noise. Dipper, on the other hand, freaked out. "Great Uncle Ford, you said this place was dead, right?" He asked, sounding afraid.

"Yes." Clifford replied quietly. "Unless somehow we reactivated the… Security system!" He added with a shade of worry in his voice, as two sphere-shaped droids appeared at the entrance of the storage facility.

"Good thing they're just security droids. It could have been worse." Clifford said under his breath.

"What do we do?" Dipper said quietly.

"Listen, Dipper. These droids only detect the amount of adrenaline in your blood – Don't think about how they do that – to detect your fear. If they don't detect any fear, they won't detect you at all." He explained, keeping his calm.

But it didn't do him any good to help the twelve year old.

"What? How on earth do I…"

"Simple, Dipper. Think that they aren't going to hurt you. Just take a deep breath, calm yourself down and control your fear."

But, once again, his words didn't help Dipper at all. He panicked and got confused, while the old scientist kept his calm and pointed the magnet gun at the droid which was ahead of the other, while it seemed to analyze them.

Then the droid shot fire at Dipper, with Clifford saving him. "Get down!" He yelled and jumped at his nephew, pushing him out of the direction of the shot. He then tried to send the droid a magnetic shot, but he felt… _weak_.

He then felt pain in his foot and looked at his feet, only to find a sizable hole in one of them.

Wasting no time, he shot one of the droids with his magnet gun before falling flat on the ground, which sent it flying back with a noise of a short circuit happening inside it. That droid would likely never work again, but they had another one of them to worry about as well.

But the old scientist couldn't stand up again. His foot was hellishly painful. He felt like he was losing control over his body, for his hands would only tremble if he wanted to move them. His vision became quite blurry, he didn't feel his feet, nor any other part of his body anymore.

"OH NO! GREAT UNCLE FORD!" Dipper shouted as he saw his uncle fall on the ground. He almost forgot about the droid that was locked on _him_ as its target, ready to apply what it was programmed to do.

Dipper saw his uncle whispering, so he bent over to hear him more clearly.

"Get the rift out of my inner pocket, my boy. You'll have to do this without me. Take the rift and adhesive with you." He said, and then closed his eyes. Dipper then noticed that he was still breathing, and instantly found the rift inside his uncle's pocket and picked it up. He then wanted to put it inside his backpack. But the next thing he knew, a robotic arm was wrapped around his small, weak body, dragging him towards where it had come from; the droid.

"Oh, No! Wait!" Dipper shouted, keeping his grip on the rift, while trying to keep from being dragged inside the droid with his other hand on the ground. "LET GO!"

But it was no use. The droid's arms were much stronger than his, and they were pulling him right inside the security droid, which looked like a demonic ball, its mouth open, ready to swallow him and never let him get out.

All the twelve year old could do was scream until he was finally locked inside the security droid, which had a transparent layer, through which he could see outside. He watched his uncle's unconscious body on the cold ground of the spacecraft, as the droid launched, moving away from where it had locked its prisoner up, slowly, swiftly leaving a blacked out Clifford Pines alone in the dark, cold corner of the storage room…


	13. The Great Unknown

**Chapter Thirteen: The Great Unknown**

 **Author's Notes: I'm terribly sorry about how long this chapter took to be done! I'd had this chapter written for quite a long time (in my notebook, of course) but couldn't sit down and type it out, because my laptop was broken. (That thing is eight years old.) It took a pretty long time for the laptop to be fixed, so now I can finally type the whole chapter. :)**

 **My lame excuses aside, let's just get to the chapter, which I hope you guys enjoy! Just to you can remember how the last chapter ended, I'm copy-pasting the last few sentences of the last chapter before I begin this one.**

* * *

"OH NO! GREAT UNCLE FORD!" Dipper shouted as he saw his uncle fall on the ground. He almost forgot about the droid that was locked on him as its target, ready to apply what it was programmed to do.

Dipper saw his uncle whispering, so he bent over to hear him more clearly.

"Get the rift out of my inner pocket, my boy. You'll have to do this without me. Take the rift and adhesive with you." He said, and then closed his eyes. Dipper then noticed that he was still breathing, and instantly found the rift inside his uncle's pocket and picked it up. He then wanted to put it inside his backpack. But the next thing he knew, a robotic arm was wrapped around his small, weak body, dragging him towards where it had come from; the droid.

"Oh, No! Wait!" Dipper shouted, keeping his grip on the rift, while trying to keep from being dragged inside the droid with his other hand on the ground. "LET GO!"

But it was no use. The droid's arms were much stronger than his, and they were pulling him right inside the security droid, which looked like a demonic ball, its mouth open, ready to swallow him and never let him get out.

All the twelve year old could do was to scream until he was finally locked inside the security droid, which had a transparent layer, through which he could see outside. He watched his uncle's unconscious body on the cold ground of the spacecraft, as the droid launched, moving away from where it had locked its prisoner up, slowly, swiftly leaving a blacked out Clifford Pines alone in the dark, cold corner of the storage room…

* * *

In less than a minute, the droid had gone through so many rooms, tunnels and halls that the desperate twelve year old couldn't keep track of the amount of them. They hadn't explored any of the rooms he was seeing, either. Everything was unknown to him, and despite how he'd always wanted to get familiar with the unknown, he felt strangely afraid, greatly terrified and horribly worried. What was his uncle doing now? Was he okay? Could the old scientist get out of the spacecraft without his help? Would he even be conscious again…?

All Dipper could do was to watch the rooms and halls go by in a dreadful silence. He didn't know what the droid was going to do to him, but he did know that it wasn't going to be anything gentle. He felt desperate about his situation, and knowing that he might not see the people he knew ever again didn't help matters at all.

He then noticed something in his hands. He looked down and found the rift, which he must have had with him all along without noticing. "Oh." He was distracted from his disappointing thoughts for a second. "I should probably put this in my backpack." He added and opened his backpack to put the rift inside, but just as he was about to put it in the backpack, he heard a sound from somewhere near.

Even though the sound was quiet, it somehow caught the twelve year old's attention and made him go alert. He listened again, and heard the same voice again, but this time, he found out what it was.

Mocking laughter.

He was terrified, but kept his calm and tried to look for the source, and then found out that the source was from somewhere inside the droid, and his train of horrible thoughts began. Is someone else in this droid? Are they riding it? Is it just a voice in my head? Like…

Just as he was about to let the worst thought into his mind, he found out that the voice was coming from what he was holding in his hands; the rift.

He instantly stuffed the rift inside his open backpack and zipped it in panic, then huffed in anxiety, listening to the sound again.

Nothing.

Since he could hear his heart pounding unusually loud, he began to calm his breathing down. Okay, deep breaths, deep breaths, in… out… in… out… in…

He kept the same progress going until he felt back to normal. "There was no evil laughter, there was no supernatural being, you're fine, now use your brain to get out of here!" He told himself and began to think of how to break out of the droid.

But at that very moment the droid crashed into a spider web, entering a new tunnel which seemed quite different than the other ones the droid had already gone through. The tunnel was decorated by plants of any kind: A lot of grass had grown on the sides, a lot of wild flowers could be seen around the place, and he could also see thick tree roots that had found a way into the underground tunnel. He could assume that the tunnel must be higher up than most other parts of the spacecraft, which could mean there was a way out of the spacecraft somewhere near – maybe.

The twelve year old found some hope in him, because that meant he could escape the spacecraft easily if he found a way out of his droid. He smiled briefly, but his smile froze as soon as he saw where the tunnel was going to.

The tunnel led to a large, empty place with only a few oval shaped things on a wall in front of Dipper. He didn't know what those things were, but he could assume they were prison cells of some kind.

This couldn't be good. If he was going to be kept inside the spacecraft, escape would be far too difficult for him. Knowing how strong the security system could be, even if he _could_ break out of his cell, he would face another prison droid and he would be back to square O-one – unless his great uncle was going to help him… He wondered if his uncle was conscious yet.

Just as he'd anticipated, the security droid moved towards the one of the "cells", moved close enough to it, but then _blended_ with it.

This filled Dipper with a mixture of shock, surprise and even more fear. He hadn't expected the droid and the cell to somehow become _one_. He had no time to think of how it happened, all he knew was that this wasn't going to end well. He started sweating anxiously as he waited for whatever was going to happen next.

Then a holograph of some kind appeared in the middle of the empty room, which Dipper thought looked like a star map. But it was also somehow being operated, as the system was choosing different spots, stars and systems. After a few choices, an image of a planet appeared, but it was behind bars.

"WHAT?" Dipper shouted as soon as he fully realized what the bars meant. "No, no, NO! They can't imprison me in another planet! What if there's no air or water in there? NO!" He banged his hands on the transparent part of the droid. But as soon as he did so, The droid began to move forwards.

"NO! NO! STOP! YOU CAN'T!" He yelled again, knowing it was no use. He kept on banging the transparent screen, begging the whole system to stop.

The droid got close to where a port of some kind had opened, through which light was coming into the droid. It seemed it led to outside the spaceship. "Oh boy." He said anxiously as he assumed the system's next move. He crossed his fingers. "Please, don't launch, don't launch, DON'T LAUNCH!"

And the prison droid launched.

All the twelve year old could do was to scream at the top of his lungs in response to the outrageous speed. He was being pressed to the bottom of the droid, as if an invisible soul was holding him down.

In an instant, the droid was flying out of the spaceship, straight into the sky of Gravity Falls. Dipper could see the whole town and the valley surrounding it just below his feet. He saw all of the houses, all of the alleys, all of the vehicles, trucks and cars and all of the trees in the evergreen forests.

He then remembered of his nightmare, where all of those trees were burnt, the hills had turned to raging volcanoes, the houses were crashed to the ground, the cars were burning…

"Stupid little boy!" He told himself, quite harshly. "If you don't find your way out, you can't prevent the end of the world, either! Think of something!"

He thought he could break the transparent layer of the droid that was keeping him inside and jump down. he was not so high up. Yet.

But he then had a much better idea, when he found his magnet gun inside his vest. He could just disable the droid the way his uncle did back in the spacecraft.

"That must work!" He found some genuine hope this time and grabbed the magnet gun hurriedly. He then looked for where he could choose the functions of the gun.

"So, this is the – AAHHH!" He yelled as the droid took a really sharp turn without bothering to reduce speed.

"Oh bot, this is way worse than that roller-coaster ride Mabel made me try." He said, but then started thinking about that ride. It was during spring break, in an amusement park, and besides how he threw up after the ride, everything else was so much fun for him. He then wondered what Mabel was doing at the moment.

 _Would he ever see her again?_

This thought popped up in his mind at the blink of an eye. He suddenly felt miserable again, but stopped his thoughts. "Come on! You just need to break out of this droid! You can do it!" And he went back to the functions of the magnet gun.

"So, this is just regular magnetic operation. Won't be needing this." And he turned the gun a little around. "This one is… Anti-magnet? Nevermind." He concluded that, whatever that option was, it wasn't what he was looking for.

"So, this is electro-magnetic pulse? This has to be it!" He said and aimed the magnet gun to the center of the droid.

But the droid went through another rough path. Dipper was being pushed to different ends of the droid, not getting a chance to shoot his magnet gun.

"AHHH! CALM DOWN!" He shouted, but the droid seemed to only make its path more irregular.

Dipper felt like throwing up, but kept his calm. "Just one shot," He said and pointed the magnet gun steadily, his finger on the trigger. "and I'll be free-"

The droid then rolled, span and turned furiously. The twelve year old lost another chance of shooting his magnet gun and rattled inside the spinning droid, eventually hitting his head hard to the transparent layer of the droid, which made him black out.

As he fell unconscious, the droid continued to fly with full speed, towards what some would call, the great unknown.

* * *

Meanwhile, a certain scientist opened his eyes inside the storage room of the UFO.

"Ugh, my back." Clifford grunted as soon as he was fully conscious. He then tried to stand up, but fell down. "Oh, no. Even my back is as weak as Ford's."

He then noticed that his left hand felt colder than usual. He didn't pay it much mind at first, thinking the floor must be cold as it is, but then his hand also felt… _wet…_

"HOLY HELL!" He was instantly alert and got up quickly, only to find his left hand in a small puddle of water. He instantly pulled his hand out of the puddle and looked at it. All six of his fingers had been melted halfway through. "Oh, no." The paper-clone scientist said and his heart began to race. He then looked inside his pockets for something he could use to stop the melting process, and found some tissues. He pulled them out and wrapped them around his hand, but the tissues were melted _themselves._

"Seriously?" He said and looked in his other pockets, while his hand was still melting. He could feel the cool kick in his hand, burning away on his paper-made flesh. He then found something that he thought might come in handy; a towel.

"Wow, Stanford thought of this?" He said, appreciating his identical self for a second before he looked back at his left arm. Most of his hand was gone.

He put the towel on his hand and tried to wipe the water off of it – at least, what was _left_ of it – and in an instant, most of the water was gone. He didn't feel the same deadly cold feeling anymore. The hand stopped melting as well. He then looked back at his hand as he put the towel away. Everything below his wrist had been melted.

"Okay, Clifford. You survived this time, but take more care the next. You might lose your whole body instead of your hand." Clifford said to himself and stood up, grimacing at the pain from his foot. He soon remembered of the way his left foot was shot earlier when he was trying to save his nephew.

His nephew… where was he?

"Dipper!" he said as soon as he realized Dipper was nowhere to be seen. "Did the droid take him?" As soon as the words escaped his mouth he started to feel ashamed of himself. _How could he let that droid take his nephew away? How could he not defend his nephew against a simple security system? How was he going to save him?_

He felt quite ashamed, but then remembered of the task he was actually going to get done; sealing the rift.

The scientist looked around and found the adhesive sitting across the panel in the storage room. Good. He had the adhesive, and he must have the rift inside his pockets. He then checked his pockets, only to find them empty.

Clifford then remembered how he'd told his nephew to take the rift with him and told him where it was. If he _had_ done so, The rift was with his nephew at the moment, who was in a security droid, which must have gone high up in the sky by now.

"I sure made a big mistake." Clifford said out loud. "If I still had the rift, I could just seal the rift right now, then go after Dipper." He added, then thought how he was going to go after Dipper at all.

Maybe he could take a prison droid and take control of it, so he could go after Dipper? But it could be risky, because he knew that he wouldn't be able to get away with it if the security system caught him, which he didn't want to need to face.

He might as well just point his magnet gun to the sky and… no. That was too dumb to work.

Clifford thought for a few more minutes, but didn't come up with anything. He couldn't find any answer to his problem. All he could hope for was for Dipper to somehow, some way, save himself…

But he needed to at least try to save the twelve year old. After all, it was his nephew. It was family. It was a matter of him coming back or not. It was a matter of him seeing his family, sister, friends – which he had never experienced having – ever again. It was a matter of a child's future. It was a matter of him living as a prisoner or as a free boy, or soon to be, a free _man._

"I won't let this happen." He said, clenching his remaining fist with determination. "I'll at least try to do something. I'm not going to let his future be ruined." And he picked up the adhesive and walked out of the storage room.

On his way out, he looked at his left hand again. He remembered that now he had only one hand to use, which could make his task much harder, especially if it involved him using his magnet gun.

"At least I have my right hand in place." He said and kept walking in the same direction through which he had come inside the spacecraft with his nephew, the only difference being he'd lost his nephew inside.

And now he was going to get his missing nephew _back._

* * *

Dipper opened his eyes with a horrible headache. He rubbed his head as soon as he found the strength in him to move his arms. "Ugh. My head… it feels like…" He began to say, but then realized that he was neither in the same attic in which he had slept for the entire summer, nor in his own bedroom back in Piedmont. He wasn't even lying in a bed. All he saw was a bright silver, sphere-shaped room with nothing but him and his old, worn backpack inside.

"Oh, man, where _am_ I?" He asked no one in particular and analyzed the small environment he was in. He then turned around, hoping to find a clue to his answer.

But what he saw was so far beyond what he had expected, it simply left him speechless.

Dipper Pines saw raging seas, gracefully splashing their waves upon the bright, white, thin line of the shores. He saw a large, green area – a forest – with a huge desert below and a chain of mountains above. He saw a gigantic ocean to the left of all else, whose calmness Dipper could feel, even from the distance he was observing the blue land of salty water. The blue area was spread up to the horizon, just like what he'd seen at the west coast, but with a great difference; he could witness the roundness of the horizon, he could see how it was obviously part of a circle that took around the whole planet. He noticed a number of waves on the ocean, moving swiftly to the invisible blow of the wind. And last, but not least, he saw the clouds from a totally different point of view. They looked like a lot of foam that was spread on top of a fascinating background. The clouds shone bright under a yellow, warm light coming from behind the twelve year old boy, and so did the ocean, which added even more beauty to his landscape of the blue sphere in front of him; _The Earth._

The twelve year old couldn't believe his eyes. He couldn't even make sense of the situation he was in. To him, seeing such an image of his own home through his own eyes was far beyond a dream come true. It was a dream which he never knew he had had, and now, it had happened in the least expected way.

"NO. WAY." He finally spoke a word with his eyes round in delight, but also a sweet sense of confusion, as well as the same feeling he had when he got to know the unknown, even though this was _not_ the unknown. He stared. And stared. And stared. And stared at the small part of the blue planet he could see.

Until a question popped up in his mind.

"Where am I, anyway?" He said out loud. "How did I end in here? There must be _some_ sort of explanation-" but he was cut by a high, robotic noise from behind him. He looked back, but all that he saw was the same white-ish silver ceiling he woke up to.

But something else seemed familiar with it as well…

He then began to remember _everything._


	14. Not A Prisoner

**Chapter Fourteen: Not a prisoner**

As if the beauty of the landscape he was witnessing was suddenly drained out, Dipper lost all of his admiration and respect for the view of the Earth that had left him speechless seconds ago. Now he only felt desperate as he thought about what had happened. He winced guiltily as more and more memory clicked back into space. "No." was all he could say as he remembered of his and his uncle's recent adventure gone horribly wrong. Now everything made sense to him. He'd flown so high up in the same droid that had caught him in the spacecraft, and he was possibly in the thermosphere at the moment.

Or was it the exosphere? He thought and tried to remember one of the things he had recently learnt on his own, but he stayed unsure. _No. He couldn't be at the exosphere, that layer was around five hundred miles from the surface. He wasn't more than two hundred miles high. Plus, if it were the exosphere, he would be freezing to death._

He finally came to the conclusion that he was at the thermosphere, but then realized that if he didn't do anything quickly, he would probably be even beyond the exosphere before he knew it. So he stopped that particular train of thought and went back to analyzing his situation.

"So I'm in the thermosphere. Great." He said with nervous sarcasm and began thinking. What did he have with him at all? He looked around, only to find his backpack sitting near him. He didn't really know if he had anything that could help him in his-

"The rift!" the twelve year old said as soon as he remembered one very important object he'd taken with him. "Has it cracked in there…?" He thought aloud, but then realized that it was unlikely. As far as he could see, nothing about the earth looked like an apocalyptic Armageddon. Plus, it wasn't like Bill would leave him be if the rift shattered and he came to their dimension. But he still felt the urge to open up his backpack and see for himself.

He began to sweat as he unzipped his backpack and looked inside to check. He didn't know how he'd react if the rift had already been shattered. So he took a deep breath and dug in.

The rift was inside.

"Phew!" The pre-teen wiped his brow in relief and took the rift out of the backpack for a closer look, all while being extra-careful. He checked the cracks on the container and was glad to know that the rift hadn't cracked more than when he last saw it.

He was quickly reminded that these cracks would eventually grow wider, resulting in the rift breaking and the universe falling apart, which was definitely not what he wanted. "Oh boy." He muttered as he realized what his next move had to be. He didn't have long before the end of the world, unless he managed to seal the rift, but he didn't _have_ the adhesive at all.

Which meant he had to go back to the earth. As soon as possible.

* * *

Clifford grimaced as he climbed another step of the ladder inside the spaceship. "This is… hell." He managed to say between his painful grunts and rested on the step to catch his breath. His foot was aching and his left hand was… missing. Having to carry the adhesive with him wasn't helping matters either. Never would he have thought that climbing a ladder could be so hard for anyone – even if they were as old as the mayor of Gravity Falls. Was he still alive at all? Because if he did the math, he would be… easily over one hundred years old.

He then took another step and looked up to see if he was there yet, and surely enough, he was. There were only three more steps above him, and after that, he'd be on the hill and out of the spacecraft. And then he could easily go after his nephew. The six-fingered scientist removed the lid covering the entry with his magnet gun as he thought.

"There we go." He muttered as the lid was removed, but instantly covered his eyes in response to the blinding light that suddenly streamed in and stopped climbing. He needed a few seconds to get used to the daylight. After doing so, he climbed the last three steps as fast as his old – and incomplete – body could, leaving the spacecraft with an epic grunt.

Clifford didn't waste any time and got to work. If his guesses were right, his nephew had to be in the droid, and the droid had to be flying towards wherever it was planned to go, which meant it had to be on top of the town, but with a great height. And that was when one of his identical self's inventions would come in handy; his watch.

Of course, his watch already had a few reasons to be used, but it also had a few purposes which had never been used, and now, one of them was going to possibly help him save his nephew. So he looked at his left wrist, where the watch still was. His wrist hadn't melted in the process. He shifted a small knob next to the watch to change functions, and then came across a screen which he always skipped; the long-distance metal detector.

As the name suggested, it was supposed to identify and locate metal objects in a distance of three hundred miles, which was meant to be used to locate meteorites that got too close to the earth. It didn't sound like something he'd need often, but with the rather unusual life he used to lead thirty years ago, it didn't hurt to have such a tool. And what could be better than having it inside his watch? He smiled, proud of his own – Stanford's – creativity. His identical self would be walking on air if he realized he'd saved Dipper with his long-distance metal detector.

 _Don't get ahead of yourself._ Clifford thought, _You can do that when you've actually saved him. Now get to work._ And he pointed his watch at the sky to see if it detected anything. He was pretty sure that Dipper's prison droid was in the watch's sensing distance. He couldn't have possibly gone farther than three hundred miles. Logically.

His thoughts came to a stop when a red dot appeared to the top-left of the screen. That meant it had sensed something.

"Yes! That has to be Dipper!" He yelped victoriously, then looked to the bottom of the screen, where an estimated distance of the object would also appear in few seconds.

The digits '19.7 mil.' appeared on the screen.

"Wow. That's quite close." He thought aloud, having previously expected numbers beyond one hundred miles. But that also meant something else, which meant he could point his magnet gun at the droid, and there was only a slim chance that his magnet gun could outweigh the force of the droid. He instantly fished in his pockets for a certain magnetic weapon and looked at his watch again.

'16.8 mil.'

He scratched his head. He could have sworn he'd seen higher numbers just a few minutes prior. How could it have gotten closer? He rubbed his eyes and looked again.

'12.4 mil.'

'10.1 mil.'

'7.9 mil.'

'4,7 mil.'

By this point he could clearly see the shadow of the droid on the hill, which reminded him of what he had to do. "Oh! My gun!" He picked it up from where he'd dropped it without knowing and aimed at a sizable spot he saw above him, and shot, but his gun refused to work. "Oh, for dimension 52's sake!" He cursed and aimed again, but the droid seemed at a different spot now; closer to the _town_.

 _NO! if it crashes there…_ He instantly aimed and shot, begging his weapon not to disappoint him again. "Magnet! PLEASE!" and the weapon successfully created a strong, magnetic gravity between itself and the droid. There was no major impacts to be seen, although Clifford felt like he'd corrected the direction enough. Instead of the middle of the town, the droid was now drawing closer to the woods.

At that point the spot began to grow bigger and bigger, until it found the shape of the actual droid. The six fingered scientist could even get a glimpse of Dipper's face inside, which made him crook a smile. He was sure his nephew was going to be safe and sound, back on his own planet.

Not long after, the object crashed inside the forest with a loud BOOM, and a very tall pine tree ungracefully fell down afterwards.

Clifford wiped his brow, only to realize he had not even a drop of sweat on his forehead, and then remembered that he wasn't even supposed to sweat. "Ugh. Force of habit." He said, then looked at the woods and the certain spot where a tree had fallen. In the blink of an eye, the paper-cloned scientist had taken off into the forest, remembering to take the adhesive with him.

* * *

"Did… did I…" Dipper said barely above a whisper as he opened his eyes. He looked around and found himself still inside the droid. But that didn't mean anything. He could have made it, but still be inside his floating prison cell. He then turned to look at the transparent part of the droid to see if his plan had worked…

And it had.

"YES!" He cracked a grateful grin as he saw the familiar woods of the evergreen forests in front of him. "I made it! I'm back!" Apparently, he'd crashed to the earth, and successfully so; he'd crashed at a safe spot, not a place where people would gawk at him because he'd crashed down like a living meteorite and then ask him if he was abducted.

He cringed at the thought, but he didn't need to worry about that possibility. He was back at Gravity Falls, where he could easily go back to his uncle, finish their mission and…

 _WHERE WAS GREAT UNCLE FORD?!_

He instantly shot up to his feet, only to hit his head to the ceiling. "Ow." He said and thought of a way to get out of the droid. There had to be a way to open that transparent lid. He'd seen that back in the spacecraft.

And right then a spark of sunlight shone on the transparent part, making an unusually straight crack in the middle of the crystal globe shine in response. Almost as if to give him a hint.

Wasting no time, he slipped his fingernails – which he didn't really clip often – inside the crack, then did the same with his other hand and tried to open the lid up, which moved surprisingly easily. Not long after, the two parts were wide apart and a wave of fresh air suddenly came in, relieving the polluted air inside the droid.

Dipper inhaled the fresh, relatively cool air and walked out of the enclosed space, into the forest which seemed to greet him warmly. He smiled at the welcoming feeling, but his peace of mind was interrupted by a high-pitched, robotic noise from behind, which sent him on instant alert. He took hold of his magnet gun and turned around in a quick movement.

It was a security droid.

The twelve year old instantly remembered of what his uncle had told him to do about those; to _control his fear._ How could he control his fear?

He took a deep breath and decided to go for it; Pretend not to be afraid. "Hey! I'm warning you!" He shouted and clutched the handle of his weapon tighter. "I have a magnet gun!"

The droid then pulled a gigantic magnet gun almost out of nowhere.

 _Oops._

"Oh yeah? You think you can scare me? Go ahead!" He yelled in response, still aiming his ridiculously small magnet gun at the droid analyzing him. "I'm not scared! Not at the slightest! Even if you _do_ get me, I'll just break out again! No sweat!" He added, yet began to feel doubtful. _Would he break out easily? It didn't seem very easy the first time, did it?_

"Or… you know, maybe not, but still…" He said and pointed to his back, where a destroyed prison droid sat. "You… You saw _that,_ right-" He was suddenly cut by an EMP, but it wasn't shot by the droid, but _aimed at_ the droid – and, thankfully, whoever they were, their aiming skills were almost decent.

Dipper was confused at first, and as usual, a train of questions began to form in his head. _Where did it come from? Who shot it? Were they trying to save him at all!?_

"Great Uncle Ford!" He squeaked as soon as he saw a certain old scientist come out of his hiding spot, holding a magnet gun. "Are you okay? I'm glad you're oka-" He said, but stopped when he noticed something that was horribly off with the old scientist. "Wait…" He said and looked at his hands – supposedly, all he saw was _one_ hand.

"I'm fine, my boy." Clifford, knowing of the twelve year old's thoughts, clarified. "I lost my left hand inside the spaceship." Meanwhile, his nephew's jaw was dropped in shock. "I would rather lose my left hand than let a universe burn down in flames." The scientist said matter-of-factly, putting his magnet gun in his pocket.

"Uh… are you _sure_ you're okay?" Dipper asked with worry, taking a chuckle out of his uncle.

"I'm completely sure about my state of health." He assured his nephew, then attempted to change the subject. "Now, tell me how you got the droid down here from up in the exosphere."

"Oh, that wasn't hard." Dipper said as his cheeks turned bright red. "I just had to-"

"Oh, I just remembered, Dipper." The scientist cut his nephew. "I'd imagine you have the rift with you."

"Oh, yes! It's inside my backpack." He said, much to his uncle's relief as he took his backpack off and dug in. "And… here it is." The twelve year old said and presented the rift to his great uncle.

Clifford took the object with his remaining hand and looked at the cracks on it. "It hasn't cracked more than it already had." He said, then faced Dipper. "But you were saying, my boy."

"Oh, okay! So…" He tried to remember what he was talking about. "yeah, I was saying. I fell unconscious and when I came back, I was so far away that I could see part of the earth. Then I tried to…"

* * *

Back in the Mystery Shack, a certain twelve year old was not doing as great as her twin. So far, she hadn't had a really good day, much to her own surprise. Mabel Pines was now sitting at her and Dipper's shared attic, looking at her scrapbook, which was filled with pictures of their summer. One of them was a selfie of the entire gang together, with Dipper, nate and Wendy showing the "horns", while another one showed Dipper on a swing with Wendy pushing him hard from behind, making him practically _fly_ on the swing. Dipper's expression said everything about how scared he was at the moment, while the redheaded lumberjill was smirking mischievously.

Normally she would have smiled at those pictures – especially the latter, as it never failed to make his brother blush – but now she had a totally different point of view about the entire summer, for it was coming to an end.

"Hey." She heard a familiar but gruff voice from the door as it opened a crack. "Everything alright, pumpkin?" The voice added and came in to the room.

"Just can't believe that summer's almost over." Mabel responded, still looking at his scrapbook when her great uncle sat beside her. "And now that I know how awful high school is going to be… I'm in no hurry to start that trainwreck." She added, and at that moment Stanley noticed a pair of dark bags under his niece' eyes, and also the way her eyes were redder than usual.

He sighed and put an arm around her shoulder. "Nobody likes gettin' older." He said matter-of-factly, looking back on his own childhood. "But just because you're growin' up, doesn't mean you have to… grow up, y'know… I mean, look at me!" At this point, he was wearing a smile. "I'm pushing seventy and I still eat ice cream for dinner."

"But… I don't wanna say goodbye to Gravity Falls…" The normally-bright preteen whimpered, almost at the verge of crying again.

"Hey," The old showman faced his niece. "At least whatever happens after this summer, you'll still have your brother with you through thick and thin!" He said, wearing his usual comforting smile. "Not everyone can say that, you know…" He added, only to show her that she had something much more valuable than she would have thought.

Mabel smiled at her uncle's words as he ruffled her hair affectionately. He then stood up with a grunt to leave the attic, nodding wordlessly at his niece before closing the door. As if to say "it'll be okay."

"Yeah, at least at home I'll always have Dipper. Good ol', reliable ol'…" She said, but was cut off with a static noise from her walkie-talkie, she then looked at her backpack as she heard her brother at the other end speak very excitedly, but apparently, not to her.

"… _So I just thought about how this droid works at all, and then thought if I could actually look inside the droid to see for myself, and maybe get a clue on how to get back. So I just smashed the droid hard with the tip of the magnet gun, and, believe it or not, it broke!"_ His voice then stopped for a second, and then a nod from a certain old scientist could be heard. Mabel was going to ask her brother a lot of questions, but decided to hold herself for now and listen to the story instead. This was getting interesting.

* * *

"There was circuits everywhere, but I found three small devices, which I thought were some sort of processors, all in different circuits. They seemed kinda special since they were placed right in the middle with nothing around them, except for a few plates with shapes engraved in them!

"The one on top had a UFO shape on it, and the other two had prison bars in them with some sort of script-like character next to each one of them which I thought were numbers. The circuit was running through the one at the middle, so I knew they chose the destination!" He babbled on without showing any signs of stopping anytime soon. "What I concluded was, if I connected the circuit to the one with the engraved UFO on top, it should take me back to the spacecraft, which was on Earth!

"So I found a pair of scissors from my backpack and cut the wires from both sides of the middle processor and the droid stopped. Then I connected them to the one on top, and instantly, the droid took a turn and was heading towards the Earth!

"Long story short," He said ironically. "when I was only a few miles in the sky, I gave the droid an electro-magnetic pulse with my magnet gun, so it wouldn't head back towards the spacecraft, because it was disabled. Not long after, I crashed, blacked out for a few minutes and… you know the rest." He finally finished his story, smiling with pride. Both people in his audience were fairly impressed, especially a certain twelve year old overhearing their conversation through the walkie-talkie.

"Wow. That's… extraordinary." The scientist said, enormously in awe.

"Oh, well… it wasn't _that_ hard…" The twelve year old said again, scratching the back of his neck. "I mean, those aliens had made it pretty easy with those signs."

But Clifford was thinking about something he'd discussed with his identical self before, but he was starting to have second thoughts on what he'd said earlier.

Dipper had a curious mind. He wanted to discover, learn and understand. Just like him. He was willing to take any risk to gain knowledge. Just like him. He had a passion for adventure, mystery and conspiracy, as he'd understood from his notes in the journal. Just like him.

But what was more important was what he'd done mere minutes ago.

He'd disabled a prison droid with his bare hands – and a magnet gun, which was fairly not a lot of force to help. What would he himself have done if he were stuck inside the prison droid? He knew fully well that he would have given up the second he was lifted off the ground. But his nephew had seen himself possibly hundreds of miles from his home, yet found a way to get back to the Earth. And he was literally one-fifth the old scientist's age.

Clifford then saw his nephew and instantly remembered of what his identical self had said last night in their lab. He then realized that Stanford was right. Now he could see what he saw. Now he could see his point. Stanford knew that his nephew was not just an awkward twelve-year-old. He was a twelve year old version of _him_. Hell, he could even become another Indiana Jones or Albert Einstein as he grew. Why not help him become so?

"Dipper, let me ask you something." He finally managed to speak up, as his nephew fixed his attention on him. "Have you thought much about your future?"

* * *

 **Author's Notes: Well, there you have it! another chapter for you guys after an eternity.**

 **I know I've said this in literally every single author's notes recently, but I'M SORRY ABOUT THE DELAY. But to make up for it, the next chapter shouldn't take long, as it's already written!**

 **But I was truly busy during the exam season and some family stuff, so I couldn't really write, but I'm back anyway!**

 **-H80NP**


	15. Left Behind

**Chapter Fifteen: Left Behind**

 **Author's Notes: As I promised; this didn't take long! For once!**

 **Again, this and the last chapter were going to be one, but they ended up being separated and split in two. Ugh, I can't keep track of myself on the notebook, then I end up with 40 pages for one chapter.**

 **Anyway, hope you enjoy this long-overdue chapter!**

* * *

"Alright, Dipper. It's time to make history." Clifford said to his nephew, excitement in his voice. "let's go to the lab and save a universe that's thirteen-point-eight billion light years wide! Are you coming?" But then he caught his nephew's expression, who was chewing on his bottom lip. "Is there anything on your mind?" The six-fingered scientist asked with more concern.

"Ummm… just wanted to… uh…" He rubbed his neck. "Could… Could I see… Mabel first?"

"Of course, Dipper. If you want to stay here in Gravity Falls, the first person who should know is your own sister." Clifford responded, smiling, much to Dipper's surprise.

"Wait… really?" The twelve year old's question got a chuckle out of the six-fingered scientist.

"Yes, really." He managed to say between his chuckles. "But _do_ remember to tell her that you haven't decided yet. She may not like the news that much." He noted and went to the vending machine and pressed a button on his watch. "Just don't take long. We have a world to save." And he descended into the small hallway.

The twelve year old wasted no time and ran to the stairs, leading to his and Mabel's shared room in the attic. He was beyond excited to tell his sister all about his adventures in the last few hours. He could even perfectly imagine her reaction to how he saw the Earth from an astronaut's view, then make it back home safe and sound. Would she believe her if he said that there's been a UFO underneath where they'd camped with the gang countless times before?

Of course, he'd also tell her about his uncle's offer and the apprenticeship, but that particular detail could wait.

He climbed up the stairs and found the door to their room a crack open. Despite the setting sun, the twelve year old didn't see any lights coming from inside, which was quite unusual. Mabel never let their room get dark – she always turned on the lights as soon as the sun began to set. _Huh, maybe she's forgotten._ He thought, but then remembered why he came upstairs in the first place.

A delighted smile began to form on his face, threatening to split his face in half. He then kicked the door open. "Mabel! I just had the best day of my life!" He said and put his backpack beside another one with a pink, star shaped sticker on it – his twin's. "Oh boy! Will you believe me if I said there's a UFO underneath the town? We actually went in there, and I was caught by their security system and locked in a prison droid and…" He babbled on with excitement, until he noticed how Mabel was curled up in bed, facing the wall. Being her twin, he knew what this meant. While he had had a splendid day, it seemed like she couldn't say the same.

 _Uh oh._

"Hey, are you okay?" The preteen asked, genuinely worried. At first, Mabel only sniffed in response.

"Tell me it's not true, Dipper." She said softly, but Dipper could easily tell that she had cried not so long ago. "Tell me you were joking!" And she turned around, revealing her own walkie-talkie, which was still on. Dipper gasped as he realized his own walkie-talkie was on as well. That meant that she must have heard every single detail of his story _and_ the apprenticeship.

"Ford's apprentice? Seriously?"

Dipper knew fully well that she was at the verge of crying for the umpteenth time that day. "Look, umm… I told him I'm not really sure… I mean, you heard me… right?" He began to explain himself matter-of-factly.

"Yeah, But…" His twin sniffed again, "You _do_ wanna stay, don't you?" She asked, obviously putting a lot of effort into holding her tears back.

"What? NO!" Dipper said only half-heartedly, but Mabel could tell that he wasn't being truthful, so she gave him a wordless glance.

"Umm… I mean… not necessarily, but…" He stopped to choose him words carefully. "This is a huge opportunity for me." He finished.

"Well it's a horrible opportunity for _ME_!" She responded fiercely, finally letting her tears out. This struck Dipper. He never expected her to be _this_ mad about his decision (which wasn't even made yet) to stay in Gravity Falls. Was it so horrible to her?

She continued to speak in her shaky voice. "I had the _worst_ day of my life! When we turn thirteen, summer ends and I'll have to leave everything behind…" She jumped out of her bed, lacking her usual brightness and enthusiasm. She faced her twin. " _You_ were the only person I could count on and now…" She stopped to sniff. "…If…if you don't come back to piedmont, I'm not sure I can get through high school _at all…_ " The preteen lowered her voice and went to the corner of the room, where her scrapbook was sitting. She opened to book to have another blurry look at her summer memories.

Dipper had never seen his sister so badly hurt. Sure, he had seen her cry, he had seen her lock herself in a room and he had seen her go into "sweater town" mode, but he felt like this was beyond any of those he'd already seen, which made his stomach twist with guilt.

He went to the same corner where Mabel was sitting and sat next to her, putting an arm around her. "Look, Mabel, I never said I'm _definitely_ staying here, so…" He thought about his next words. "I mean, I can just go and tell Ford that I'm going back to California, he'd totally understand." His words seemed to get her attention for once. She turned to her brother. "R…R…Really?" She whimpered in disbelief, eyes wide and the corners of her lips gradually turning into a smile, as if she was given the world. "He… He _would?"_

"Well, yeah." The twelve year old boy assured his bemused twin, glad that she'd come to her senses. "But, on the other hand, this is an opportunity I might not get in awhile. I can get to study the paranormal, help Great Uncle Ford, keep having everyone else around and not get bullied by other kids at my school." He began to logically explain his point of view while Mabel's smile gradually faded away.

"So, it's not like I don't wanna come back home, but at the same time, I wanna stay here too, y'kno-" Right then the sweatered preteen decided she'd had enough with the nonsense, so she stood up, picked up a backpack and ran out of the room, making her brother fall.

But she didn't care. She didn't want to see him at all. She felt like no one in the attic, the shack, the town, or maybe even the whole world was going to help her now. She ran down the stairs and towards the gift shop, all while bitter tears poured down from her sad, chocolate brown eyes. The twelve year old heard her brother's cries behind her, demanding her to come back, but didn't pay it much mind and kept on running to the woods, where she'd be able to calm down from her emotional breakdown.

She finally stopped under a certain tree and sat down, hugging her legs.

"Only party chocolate can cheer me up now." She said and took her backpack off to see what she had inside. She opened up the zipper and dug in, only to find things that she didn't remember putting in _her_ backpack. "Nerd books?" She said, holding a notebook with a drawing of the cliffs around the town on it. She put it back in and dug again, only to find pens that were _obviously_ not hers. "Chewed-up pens? Ugh. Wrong backpack." She sighed and shoved his brother's backpack away. "It's not fair." murmuring, she tugged the neck of her sweater and pulled it up to her forehead and covered her legs with the bottom of her hand-knit birthday sweater, going into 'sweater town' mood. "I just wish summer could last _forever…_ "

For a few moments, everything was silent. All that could be heard was the sound of the wind blowing softly, moving the leaves of the trees, making the same calming sound that never failed to improve her mood. To her own surprise, Mabel began to gradually calm down. She didn't feel mad at Dipper anymore. She didn't feel like she was being left behind. She just felt sad after all the happenings, and she needed to be alone.

"That… might be possible!" A high-pitched voice interrupted her peaceful silence, as if to answer to her last few words.

"Sweater town is not accepting incoming calls right now." She said to the voice, still inside her sweater.

"M-M-Mabel, it's me." The voice said again, this time nearer to her. This time, the voice rang a bell for the preteen, which made her tug her sweater down to check around. "What? Who… who said that?"

"I-I can help." A tall, fat man appeared from in between the woods, adjusting his camouflage suit. He was wearing a pair of goggles, a short strain of brown hair on his head, and what made him instantly recognizable – a yellow tape-measure-like time machine around his belt.

"The time traveler guy," Mabel said, remembering the two times they had traveled in time – and encountered him. "What are you doing here?"

"You said you didn't want summer to end, right? D-d-did I hear that right?" Blendin said, wearing a brief smile, which was quite unusual of the normally-anxious man.

"yeah… Why're you asking?" Mabel said, slightly suspicious.

"Look, maybe it's against the rules, but you once did a favor for me, so I thought I could help you out." He said, making her suspicions go away. "It's called a time bubble, and it prevents time from going forward." The time traveler explained, still smiling. "Summer in Gravity Falls can last as long as you want it to!"

Mabel wiped her tears and whimpered. "Really? But how does it work?"

Blendin's smile widened. "I just need you to get a little gizmo for me from your uncle." He explained and used his wristwatch to show the object he needed. It was a crystal globe containing glittery fluid inside. "It's something small. He won't even know it's missing."

"Huh." Mabel said understandingly and grabbed her backpack. "Maybe Dipper has something like that in his nerd-bag." And she dug in to find the object.

In the middle of her searching, she also noticed how the time traveler was wearing a wide smile, which made Mabel grow suspicious of her friend from the future again. But she instantly brushed the thought aside, thinking that Blendin must be glad to help one of the two people who'd saved him from God-knew-what sort of fate. He had to feel good about himself for once in a long time. The twelve year old then went back to finding the object she was going to find.

After a little bit more searching, Mabel found the small thing. But the instant she saw it, she felt a sense of déjà vu. She felt like she'd already seen it somewhere, but she didn't remember it, which made her a little nervous. _What if she was handing the time traveler something important?_

"That's… odd." She said and looked at the big man in front of him. "This is it?"

Blendin grinned and began to sweat. "Yes, that's it! Just hand it over, and I'll do my thing." He said, making the preteen even more unsure of herself. Mabel's sense of déjà vu was now becoming stronger, and more annoying. "Unless you're ready to leave Gravity Falls." He added, raising a bald eyebrow.

Mabel then remembered all that her uncles had told her last night; about how Bill wanted to destroy their world and/or take over it. They told her that the demon would do anything and go to any depths to make his sick-minded dreams come true. _Any depths._ Was the _thing_ she was holding anything related to it?

But she neither could nor wanted to lose a chance of a few more days at Gravity Falls. Hell, it was more than just a few days. It could be weeks, months or maybe years even. How could she spare that chance?

"Just a little more summer." She said to herself, barely above a whisper and stood up, holding the object to her time traveler of a friend, who took it without a second of hesitation.

As soon as the time traveler grabbed hold of the crystal object, Mabel remembered where she had seen it; she had caught Dipper looking at a drawing of it inside the journal just a few days before the road trip, with the title "The Rift" on top of the page. Although Dipper didn't let her see it after he realized she was looking. That meant it had to be important… in a way…

Right then and there she knew she'd made a really, really big mistake.

"WAIT!" She yelled at Blendin, getting his attention.

"Huh? What's w-w-wrong, M-M-Mabel?" The time traveler asked nervously.

"I… uh… I changed my mind… cause… y'know…" She tried to come up with a reason. "Well, you know, maybe having a longer summer isn't worth getting you into trouble again," And she chuckled nervously. "I mean, I know you've already spent time in that whole time-prison thingy because of us, and it must have been horrible… Poor you!" She explained herself while Blendin raised an eyebrow. "So, I think… I don't wanna see my friend at prison again, I mean, you're our friend, right?" And she let out another short and nervous chuckle, which lasted only until she saw the time traveler's frown. "…right?" She said quietly.

"Okay, shoot- I mean, Mabel." He began to sweat – again. "Here's your uncle's thing, then." And the teddy bear of a man held the object to her. Mabel reached to receive it, but suddenly, Blendin let _go_ of it.

Instantly, Mabel dove in to catch the falling, delicate container of the rift and, thankfully, she caught it just in time. She sighed in relief, but then, the time traveler stepped on the rift, and _hard._

Mabel froze as the dark, glittery liquid spilled on her small, aching hands – from the way "Blendin" stepped on them – and felt a bone chilling cold on the spots where the fluid had spilled. She knew that whatever all of this could mean, it was nothing good.

She gazed up at "Blendin", only to see him in a really unusual state. He was wearing a grin even larger than the one he had on his face a few minutes ago, and his teeth seemed to look somewhat inhuman, and razor-sharp…

But what was even more alarming was the fact that, for the first time, "Blendin" had taken his goggles off, and was now looking at her with a pair of yellow, glowing eyes that were _clearly not his_.

She gasped and stood up instantly. "Oh no! WAIT!" She screamed in a frightful realization as she desperately stepped back.

"Thanks A Lot, Shooting Star." Bill Cipher said in a bone chilling voice, which came both from the outside and from inside the preteen's head. "Remind Me To Return The Favor For Ya!" And he snapped his puppet's fingers with an evil laughter which sent shivers down anyone in hearing range's spines, including Mabel.

Just at that moment, Mabel's vision went pitch black and she began to feel drowsy, lost her power to stand up and went into a black and senseless world of unconsciousness…

* * *

"Here you are!" The six fingered scientist said as soon as he heard the elevator arrive behind him, inside the lab. He turned, only to see the unhappy expression – to say the least – which his nephew was wearing. Clifford's smile faded when he saw the twelve year old. "So, how did your sister react?" He tried to ask casually.

"She already knew." He said matter-of-factly, taking the old scientist aback. "And she wasn't exactly… with me on it." He then understated.

"Dipper, I told you that staying here with me may not be the best decision for you." Clifford calmly reminded his nephew. "and if you decide not to be my sidekick and go back home, I won't get in your way." The last sentence caught Dipper's attention.

"Wait, so… you… you really won't?" He said, almost in disbelief. Despite assuring his sister a few minutes ago that their uncle would understand him, he wasn't genuinely sure if he could go to Piedmont if he wished.

"Of course, my boy. Who am I to obligate you into anything about your life?" He smiled and walked to the counter in the lab, where the adhesive was sitting. The twelve year old then quickly remembered.

"Now, I imagine we have a rather important task left undone." The scientist spoke and turned to his nephew. "Since I've lost a hand, I'm going to need an extra pair of hands with the rift." He threw in a pun, which got a chuckle out of the preteen. A few seconds later, the two were sharing a relieving laugh together.

After they stopped, Clifford returned to a more serious mood. "Okay, I need the rift, Dipper."

The twelve year old then suddenly remembered of their task and put all the humor at the back of his mind. "Oh, right. The rift." He said and removed his backpack to look inside. But the first thing he took out of the backpack wasn't supposed to be there at all.

It was a birthday invitation which Mabel had made a week early.

"What!?" He shrieked as soon as he realized what mistake he had made. Unfortunately the pink sticker on the backpack left no doubts in his mind that he was looking at his twin's backpack.

Therefore, his own backpack had to be on Mabel's back at that moment…

"OH NO! THE RIFT!" The twelve year old said with too much worry for anything he'd faced before. The scientist and the pre-teen shared a wordless look, and in the blink of an eye they were both rushing to the elevator.

"OHNOTHISISALLMYFAULTISHOULDHAVETAKENMORECAREI'MSORRYI'VECAUSEDTHEENDOFTHE-"

"Dipper." Clifford raised his hand to stop his nephew as they stepped inside the rusty elevator. "We don't even know if the rift has cracked at all. It's probably sitting somewhere in your room, safe and-" But he, too, was cut by something that sounded like a momentary earthquake, powerful enough to throw both of them a few inches into the air, even though they were in a lifting elevator.

Well, _that_ was no good omen.

At that very moment, the elevator stopped and the door opened. neither of the worried pair wasted anytime and they ran the distance between the elevator and the vending machine as quickly as they possibly could. Thoughtfully, Clifford opened the hidden door via his watch before they arrived so they could run right out. They then sprinted to the front door faster than an Olympic runner and stopped in the clearing in front of the shack to see if all was well.

Which, clearly, it wasn't.

Clifford pines gasped and stared wordlessly at what was upon him, and the rest of the townsfolk – or, likely, the rest of the planet. This was all he'd feared for thirty years. All he'd tried to prevent for months before being sucked to his own portal. All his biggest, darkest foe had been trying to accomplish for possibly long before the first humans appeared. It was all over. Bill had won. The nightmare realm had won. The demons had won, and the humans had lost. The wild, otherworldly beings were about to take over.

Clifford swallowed hard as he looked at the large, colorful X that had freshly formed in the sky. Meanwhile, a frightened Dipper Pines stood right next to his also frightened great uncle as he faced a horribly familiar scene, which made him remember of his rough sleep the night before.

* * *

 **Author's Notes: Whew! This one's done, too!**

 **I've been running through an inspired mood lately and have been writing a lot more than the last couple of months. That means more chapters on their way! Chap 16 is already done (in my notebook) as I'm writing this.**

 **Thanks for reading! :) Stay tuned, as there's more to come.**

 **-H80NP**


	16. Brave New World

**Chapter Sixteen: Brave New World**

A reddened sky. A disgusting scent in the air, which smelled of threat, destruction and weirdness. A huge nightmarish X had decorated the sky, almost like a black hole but much more colorful and differently shaped. Although it was a colorful object, it spread a great sense of fear in him, himself knowing clearly why.

The reason could be clearly seen when he looked a little bit lower down. A familiar, dark yet glowing stone-made pyramid was floating in the sky, with its tip hovering an inch or two above the rest of the unholy building. The same hills he'd walked upon an hour ago were spitting magma with brute force, like volcanoes roaring back to life after centuries of silence. But to top it all off, his biggest fear was on top of the whole scene, twisting its only eye around to analyze the dimension he was floating above, where he'd soon call his new home.

Dipper Pines, Hoping that he was just having a repetitive, ridiculous nightmare, desperately pinched the palm of his hand to no avail. He tried again. And again. And again, only to find himself right where he was, in the exact same surroundings as before, which seemed horribly like the nightmare he'd had just the night prior.

He desperately hoped for someone to wake him up from this repetitive nightmare. He hopelessly wished that what he was witnessing was just another creation of his paranoid mind. He wanted Mabel to wake him up and calm him down, just like she had done countless times before, ever since his first nightmare – which he remembered clearly.

"So, _this_ is how the world ends," The twelve year old was snapped out of his thoughts and into the harsh reality with his uncle's voice. "Not with a bang, but with a boop-boop." He added and gestured to his head, then looked at his left wrist. "And a melted hand."

"Wait, what?" Dipper said as soon as he heard his uncle say the m-word, looking at where the old scientist's left hand had once been. "Y-Y-your… your hand…"

"Oh, my hand?" The six fingered scientist asked calmly, but trying to find something to tell Dipper. "Acid." He chuckled. "I accidentally had my hand go inside a puddle of sulfuric acid. It took me longer than it should have to realize."

"Oh… Must have been horrible." Dipper said trying to keep himself distracted from all that was going on around them.

"Not as horrible as what is currently happening." Clifford sighed and the duo looked at the floating pyramid, right beneath the giant X in the unnaturally red sky. The old scientist was reminded of something he – Stanford – had done previously in the multiverse and smiled, which surprised Dipper, who couldn't be more freaked out.

"Umm… Uncle Ford…" He tried to ask, when he was given his reply even before he completed his sentence.

"Reminds me of an accident with the infinity sided die." He explained. "I accidentally rolled it in a dimension called Land of the Blind." And he chuckled at his memories.

"So, it's like, there's a one-eyed king reigning over blind people?" The curious twelve-year-old said, having already heard about the land of the blind.

"Absolutely. Almost as if the tale was taken from the same dimension I visited." The scientist stated and went back to his story. "Anyway, the consequences of rolling the dice were much less than I'd expected."

"What happened?" said the preteen.

"The sky permanently changed color." He said matter of factly as his smile deepened. "It went from a regular sky blue to sharp purple. Thankfully the people were blind, but their one-eyed king…" He remembered how he was banned from a dimension for the first time. "He… did seem annoyed." He understated, and Dipper let out a chuckle at his uncle's experience.

"What did he do?" He asked, almost playfully. Clifford snorted with laughter at his question.

"I'd imagine you have already made a guess." He said, receiving a nod from his nephew.

"He kicked you out, Uncle Ford. Didn't he?"

"As soon as he realized whose doing it was, yes." The old scientist answered to him, remembering being escorted out of the One Eyed King's castle.

Dipper allowed himself a small laugh before he realized something else that was off with his Uncle – besides the missing hand. It almost annoyed him, and he didn't know why.

Usually, his uncle would be brutally serious about things, especially his work, which was to be expected from 'The Author'. He wouldn't mess around when things were serious, unless it was a matter of his favorite board game.

But, at the moment, he didn't seem half as serious as he would be when building a simple tool, or even when cleaning up his lab, even though the world was practically ending. He wasn't acting like himself…

The last thought made the twelve year old go from curious to anxious. The more he thought about it, the more it made sense. Ever since the early morning interruption, where he was saying rather irrelevant words before getting to the gist, through the hill where he would only tell him to be quicker and not to get left behind, to right now, when Bill was taking over the town and he was telling funny stories from his past. Instead of the serious behavior which was the old scientist's usual attitude, he was now acting optimistic in a way that reminded him of someone else…

Meanwhile, Clifford was trying his best to describe the situation to Dipper. "The rift has shattered. Bill's world is spilling into ours and-"

"Mabel!" Dipper suddenly exclaimed. "The rift must have shattered inside her backpack!" He pulled up his – his sister's – backpack and grabbed the walkie talkie inside it, taking off to the forest. "She must be in danger! I have to go find her!

"Mabel! Come in, Mabel! MABEL!" He kept on running towards the woods, but was stopped by a more serious-looking Clifford. "Dipper! Listen to me! We will find your sister as soon as we can, but we will have to stop Bill first. His powers are growing stronger by every passing second. If we can take him out when it is easier, everyone will be safe.

"Else, we have a bigger chance of failing and therefore, we will struggle to come up with a solution to save our world, and it might be guaranteed that this dimension is lost…" He added, his expression darkening.

Dipper was also growing unsure. "Are you sure defeating Bill is even possible?" He asked, looking his great uncle in the eyes, desperation in his expression.

Clifford was taken aback by the sudden and harsh question. He looked at the ground and began to organize his thoughts. "Dipper…" He knelt down, looked straight into his nephew's brown eyes before adding, "… even if we have an impossible mission ahead of us, I wouldn't imagine you'd give up without a fight. Would you?" The scientist saw his nephew's hesitation, but he already knew his answer. He knew that Dipper was not a soul who would give up because his road to success was one of harsh bumps and dips. He knew that his hesitation would turn into determination not a second after, and he would go to any depths to forbid the demon from tasting the success he was on his way to get.

"I won't, Uncle Ford." Dipper said, just to his uncle's anticipations, and made Clifford smile approvingly.

"Good, because nor will I." He pat Dipper's back and stood up, but then heard a low, grumbling sound drawing near them. They looked at the woods, where a gigantic, purple wave was approaching.

"But we do need to step inside the shack for shelter." Clifford said and ran to the old, yet safe building with Dipper following not long after. They instantly got inside and watched outside from the windows. The wave passed by, but didn't leave much of an impact on anything neither inside the building nor outside it.

The duo wiped their brows in relief as they realized that this particular weirdness wave was past them. They then had a moment to rest, when Clifford remembered of a certain someone he had to notify with the news.

"Now, Dipper, I need to go downstairs for a moment." Clifford said.

"Oh! Do you, like, need any help?" Dipper said, wearing a smile, but Clifford refused.

"No need, I'll be back in just a few minutes. Meanwhile, could you watch out for any abominations that draw near the house?" He asked and walked to the vending machine.

"Of course! I mean…"

"Good, I'll be back in less than ten minutes." The old scientist pressed the button on his watch to open the door and stepped inside the walkway, as the vending machine automatically rotated back into place.

* * *

"Alright, here you go." Stanford whispered to himself as he successfully copied the three-hundred-and-ninth pair of hands, none of which had disappointed him when it came to taking orders. He had been busy with making them do different functions, such as bringing him things he needed and transforming into larger bodies – which was influenced by the gnomes, of course – as well as punching one of his brother's punch bags he didn't know was inside his lab.

By that point his study room was flooding with six-fingered, wrinkly hands, which was why the scientist considered stopping after hours of working. He _might_ have gone a little overboard with the number of hands. How many had he made? He looked at the paper he kept on marking for every single hand, which had been marked with eight lines after the six-hundred-and-ten point. _Huh. That's a lot._ It was a miracle for him that the copier hadn't run out of paper yet.

He finally allowed himself a moment to rest after all the work and settled on the small, but comfortable couch in the corner of his study room.

"Ahhhh…" Stanford sighed happily as he let his slightly aching body unwind. He felt proud of what he had done so far, and now, it was time to put a new entry inside the journal.

The old scientist snapped his fingers and two hands climbed the wooden table to take him the journal, but then he had a much better idea.

He thought again and ordered them, and they opened the journal to the last page Stanford had written inside. One of the two hands then picked up Stanford's feather-ended pen and began to write, all under the scientist's command.

 _618 hands. The decision is final._ He thought up the text and saw the hand's movement while the other one held the pages so that they wouldn't flip over. _Clever!_ He praised the second hand in his mind, then ordered them to close the book and bring it to him.

The writing hand took a moment to finish, then closed the book and the two of them carried it down to the floor and up to him. He picked it up and flipped it open to the last page.

To his surprise, the hands had gotten almost everything right. The page they wrote in was right, the line they chose to write was right – it hadn't been written _on top of_ other writings – and they even bore his handwriting.

The only problem was _what_ they had written.

" _618 hands. The decision is final. Clever!"_ He read and raised his eyebrow. The hand had even written the approving thought he had. _He needed to be careful with his mind._

He then began to write more in his journal on his own.

He soon put the journal away and continued to rest. He wondered what was going on outside, and that maybe he needed to go upstairs and take a look for himself. But he didn't feel like he needed to. Dipper and Clifford must have taken care of the rift, and therefore, there would be nothing new for him to see. Plus, since they had both left the house, if anyone saw him it would raise their suspicions.

He was not worried at all. Even if Bill dared to step in their world, with Six hundred hands, they would for sure overcome him…

"EMERGANCY!" The old scientist's break ended when the door opened and a frantic voice followed. Stanford quickly jumped to his feet to see who the intruder was. "Who are you-"

He stopped when he saw his own clone at the door, who seemed quite frightened by something. He was holding his chest with his right hand, panting to catch his breath. "…oh. It's you, Cliff."

"Emergancy!" Clifford repeated himself, no less frightened than he was at first.

"Cliff! Would you be more clear?" Demanded a frustrated Stanford. "What IS your emergency at- HOLY COWL!" The scientist cursed in the name of an anomaly as he noticed something horribly off with his clone. "What… What happened to _your hand?"_

"that's not important, Ford." Clifford tried to tell his identical self the actual news, but Stanford began talking again.

"What on earth do you MEAN it's not important?" Clifford face-palmed. "Was that not your emergency in the first place?"

"Ford! The worst case scenario has happened!" Clifford tried again to break the news to him, but he wasn't listening.

"At least I can give you one of the hands I've copied in the meantime. Oh, by the way, what's your thoughts on my six-hundred-plus copied hands?" Stanford didn't need to point to anything or anywhere, as the hands were already in every spot in the study room. "Fascinating, is it not?"

"Fascinating indeed! Now WILL YOU _LISTEN?!"_ Clifford said rather harshly, making Stanford realize that his collection of paper organs could wait. He instantly went from Proud Inventor to Silent Listener.

"Good." Clifford sighed and went on to tell him the news. "Worst case scenario."

"What _is_ the worst case…" It took Stanford a moment to understand what his clone was referring to. His expression darkened. "…Oh no…" He said quietly, now looking at the carpet. He wasn't taking it as calmly as he would have thought he would. "…But, How _did_ the rift break? You found the adhesive, didn't you?"

"That's a long story. To cut it short, the security system was somehow activated." He summarized hurriedly.

"How? It has been defunct for centuries-"

"I've no time to explain, Ford! I came here to tell you, so you can start the worst case _plan_ as well." The clone said. "We had a plan we discussed, I believe."

"Yes, yes. I know. That's what the numbered patches are here for." He said and pointed to where the said patches sat. Clifford was impressed.

"That's a clever idea, Ford." He said approvingly.

"Thanks, but how many should I…"

"That is your business." The clone waved the question off. "Right now, I need _something_ to try and confront Bill with. I need to prevent his powers from growing…" His expression darkened as he thought about the horrible task he had ahead of him. "…I need to give it all that I have within me. Maybe I have a chance of defeating him. But if I fail…" He put his hand on his identical self's shoulders. "… _You_ keep up this fight."

Stanford nodded with determination. "I will take my part in this fight. I've caused this and I will end it myself."

"Thanks for the assurance, but can you think of a weapon that I could use?" Clifford went back to what he needed and they both thought. Neither could think of anything that would come in handy in front of the demon, although there was a wide range of weapons that could be found inside the lab.

But Stanford felt like there _was_ something. He felt like there had to be something made for the sole purpose of defeating Bill and snapping him out of existence…

"Ah-ha! That has to be it!" The old scientist snapped his fingers as he realized he had a certain weapon built with help from Fiddleford – or his parallel self, to be more exact. "Experiment 618!"

"What?" Clifford said, unable to remember what that code was for. "Ford, you're aware I'm not good with codes."

"Cliff, come on. Remember Parallel Fiddleford?" Stanford dropped a hint, which seemed to work.

"Oh! The Quantum Destabilizer!" Clifford also snapped his fingers in realization, now smiling. "I'll take it! Where is it?"

"But, Cliff. Don't you think that you might not be qualified to make the shot?" Stanford nodded at his clone's nonexistent left hand, which was necessary to hold the weight of the riffle-shaped destabilizer. The clone sighed and thought.

"Maybe I can go instead of you." Stanford piped up with an idea, but the other old scientist instantly refused.

"No. Dipper already knows that I've lost a hand. If he sees you with your left hand in place, he'll suspect a thing or two."

"What will you do, then?"

They both deepened in thought again. The situation was quite complicated. Neither one of them could make the shot, but one of them had to. If they did, the entire Armageddon would come to an end as suddenly as it had started, but _someone_ had to pull the trigger.

None of the two could figure out who that person could be, until Clifford decided to take a gigantic risk he had no way out of.

"Maybe Dipper could make the shot." He finally said not-so-enthusiastically. Stanford looked surprised, yet he couldn't think of a better idea. Clifford added, "I don't want to take such risk, but we still have another way if we fail to destroy him."

"Very well." Stanford said and closed his eyes.

"Umm… What are you…" Clifford said, but stopped when five of the hands began to carry a certain worn briefcase on their fingers.

The clone took the briefcase as soon as it arrived and looked at it. _Experiment 618._ "That's great, but…" Clifford began to say, "I'd want to write down my entries as well. Think you can give me the journal?"

"Yes, I can. I've written everything that I needed to write." Stanford said and picked up the said book from nearby and handed it to his clone. He then also picked up a pencil to give Clifford. "And this is for writing." He explained.

"Okay… but why a pencil? You know I can write with a pen just fine. I'm not a third grader." Clifford asked, somewhat offended, when Stanford explained.

"The ink is liquid, and knowing my age-old pen, its ink might spill on the paper. I'm not taking any chances, are you?"

Clifford couldn't argue, so he put the pencil in his pocket. He took a deep breath, slipped his right hand inside the handle of the briefcase and went to the door.

"Also, Ford, I think this idea of your hands turned out pretty decent." He said before walking inside the elevator. Stanford let out a nervous chuckle.

"Good luck, Cliff." He waved at his clone, then added; "And Dipper."

"Good luck, and may the Fords be with you." Clifford threw in one final joke before he pressed the button inside the elevator to go upstairs.

Stanford laughed at the humor of his clone when he was going upstairs. He then sighed and went to the copier, where he would start to do even more work, but this time, he wasn't copying hands.

That was why he simply lay down on the copier, made sure the screen could cover all parts of his body, and press the button on the old device…

* * *

 **Author's Notes: So, now Ford's making more clones!**

 **I can't believe I'm starting to get to this part of the story! I've always thought about the Armageddon part and how that part should go, and now here we are!**

 **Anyways, Thanks for reading, and please leave a review! It'd be so much appreciated.**

 **-H80NP**


	17. A Fatal Shot

**Chapter Seventeen: A Fatal Shot**

Dipper was growing impatient.

He had been waiting for his uncle to come back upstairs for fifteen minutes, which felt like an eternity to the preteen, especially considering how he had assured him to come back shortly. His paranoid mind couldn't help but to add to his anxiety either. He had even started to sweat again. "Oh, man, I hope nothing bad's going on. Oh man, please…"

But he instantly remembered of his duty to look out for the weirdness. "Oh right. Watching duty." And he went to the Gift Shop window, back to his relatively uneventful job.

He hadn't encountered anything near the shack so far, but he definitely had seen a handful of things inside the town which sent shivers down his spine. At the moment, Gompers was chewing on the evergreen trees. He sighed at what he was witnessing not so far away, thinking of his nightmare again. The rather unusual detail about his dream was the fact that a certain demon was nowhere to be seen, yet it had come completely true, and _because_ of him. Everything he saw was exactly as he'd already experienced last night in his harsh dream; the unbreathable air, the red sky with the cross-shaped tear, the pyramid floating in the air and the monsters he saw. It was all awfully familiar.

He was snapped out of his thoughts when a clicking sound came from behind him, where the vending machine was. A warm, familiar voice followed.

"Dipper, I have-"

"YOU'RE BACK!" Dipper shrieked unintentionally when he saw his great uncle again. But, seeing Clifford's expression, he decided to clear his throat to look more professional. "Uh-hmm. You took long. What happened?"

But, instead of responding, the scientist laughed at his nephew's reaction to him coming back, Which confused the twelve year old. "Umm… what are you laughing at?" He asked.

Clifford barely stopped himself from laughing to explain to his nephew. "Oh, it's because you are acting _just_ like a younger me." He chuckled, relieving his nephew that there was nothing that he did wrong. Or nothing _too_ wrong at least.

"Okay… so what took you long downstairs?" The preteen brought the subject back on.

Clifford looked at the briefcase he was carrying and explained briefly, "I was looking for this. Anyways, I have good news and bad news. Which one do I say first?"

"Good news…?" Dipper answered.

"Okay. The good news is, we have a considerable chance of defeating Bill within the next…" He thought for a second. "…two hours, or less, with…" And he knelt down, opened his briefcase – which took longer than usual, as he was doing it with one hand – and showed the weapon inside to his nephew. "With this."

Dipper looked at the rifle inside the case, which had a scope on top, two grip handles, and a two-piece… _thing_ instead of an ordinary barrel.

"This is my Quantum Destabilizer." Explained the old scientist with no pride in his voice. "I designed this before I came back, and for the sole purpose of defeating Bill."

"Oh. That is… fascinating." Dipper said plainly.

"Fascinating indeed."

"And… The bad news?"

"There's two of them." Clifford explained. "One; we've only one chance to make this shot. And two; I can't be the one to shoot Bill with this, as I don't have a left hand, and that I'll need it to hold the destabilizer." He then knelt down and looked his nephew in the eye.

"I need _you_ to snap Bill out of existence."

* * *

"Is there really no other way? I haven't even held a real gun in my hands, like, ever! And now I should kill Bill with it?"

Dipper was trying his hardest to escape the responsibility on his shoulders, while Clifford wrote in the journal with a pencil. He was clearly not listening.

The two were hiking through the forest, on their way to the town, where they would try to assassinate the three-sided demon who'd caused the Armageddon.

"We can just get someone else to shoot Bill instead of me! Right?" The twelve year old said just as his uncle finished writing in the journal.

"I'm sorry Dipper. I was quite busy writing in the journal." He said and put the journal inside his coat's pocket.

"Uh… Okay, but before that…" Dipper nodded to the rather heavy briefcase he had been carrying. "Think you could-"

"Oh, yes. Of course." Clifford was quick to grab hold of the briefcase. "Now, go on."

"All I'm saying is that we might wanna find somebody else to make the shot. I mean-"

"No one else knows these demons like we do. That's why everyone is in a panic attack at the moment." Clifford explained calmly. "Imagine being asked to shoot a being you never knew existed with a gun the likes of which you have never seen, and that making it will end the Armageddon, but failing it…" He stopped and Dipper nodded understandingly. "You'd lose your nerve, wouldn't you?"

"Yes." The twelve year old tilted his head.

"See? That makes the panic they are going through even worse, and increases their chances of failing." Clifford smiled and bent over to avoid being hit by a branch of a tree. "But you already know Bill. You've seen him and fought him over your possessed body. You have even defeated the basta-" He stopped as he realized that the B word wasn't exactly the most appropriate word to use. Dipper raised an eyebrow. The scientist cleared his throat. "Uh-hmm. Pretend I never said that."

"O…okay." Dipper said awkwardly and the two both went silent.

After a minute's worth of awkwardness, Clifford decided to bring back the subject. "But you _do_ get my point, I'd imagine."

"Yes… but I'm not that calm either." The twelve year old admittedly said.

"That is only natural." Clifford said and coughed out the unbreathable air. "You're about to save an _entire universe_ , Dipper. Anyone about to make such accomplishment would be somewhat nervous."

"…oh." Dipper simply said, now somewhat convinced, and they both continued their walk through the forest.

However, Dipper was still worried. He couldn't help but think how his shot would be. What would even happen if he hit Bill? Would he just explode and turn to nothing? And more importantly, _was_ he going to hit him at all?

.

In about half an hour, the duo had found where Bill and his demonic bunch were. They had settled behind a few bushes so that they would go unnoticed, and watched the end of a certain street, where the demons had gathered around next to a melted statue. The old scientist and his young nephew were brainstorming on how and where to take their shot.

"So, do you think here is a good place to do it?" Whispered Clifford.

Dipper used his pair of binoculars to take another look at his target and size up the distance. "Not sure. It's too far, I'd say." He whispered back and put the binoculars down .

"I'm not taking any chances." Clifford said, frowning. "Could you think of a better spot?"

"Let me look around again." The twelve year old replied and took another careful look at the street, former statue and the buildings near it. The demons were at the center of it all.

 _Maybe one of those buildings would make a nice spot?_ The preteen thought and analyzed the houses in eyesight. He could use some consultation.

"Psst. Uncle Ford." He said and removed his binoculars. His great uncle started to listen. "What do you think about one of those buildings?"

"Let me see." The scientist whispered and opened the bushes a crack to take a look. He could see a few short, ordinary houses, all of which could be a potential spot, but they were too short for them to shoot Bill from, who was floating quite high above the ground. They wouldn't have accurate aiming from that low a height. The roofs were at a better height, but shooting from the roofs could give them exposure, and their mission was doomed to fail if they got noticed.

Then another building caught the scientist's eyes, which was fairly taller than the other places. It had a large window, which could be where they'd shoot from. He had already seen that building; it was the clock tower.

He crooked a smile as he realized that he had come across the sweetest spot they could hope to find.

"Umm…" Of course, his smile didn't escape from Dipper, who was already making pretty accurate assumptions. "…did you find anything?"

Clifford's smile grew into a grin as he faced his nephew. "Not only did I find _something,_ I found the _sweetest spot_ for you to shoot Bill from."

Dipper instantly grew nervous. He knew what this meant. Before he knew it, There would be a rifle in his hands and a trigger under his index finger, and the fate of a universe relying on his shooting skills.

 _Uh-oh._

* * *

"You're doing _perfect_ , Dipper!" Clifford said after he'd given him the last instruction on how to hold the Quantum Destabilizer. He was now holding the rifle perfectly. "Now, all that you need to do is to look through the scope."

Dipper nodded and swallowed hard as he put his eye on the lens of the scope.

"Uh, Uncle Ford…" Dipper asked quietly. "Sh-Should I fix the triangle on Bill now?" He added, clearly confused by the triangular aiming inside the scope instead of the ordinary dot.

"Yes. Make sure it is done perfectly." Clifford made one final note. The preteen then focused his attention on the target, who was – thankfully – standing still.

"Ready To Cause Some Havoc, Boys?" Screeched the demon at his friends, who let out an evil laughter in response.

"Alright, Dipper. Fix the sides to _his_ sides…" He spoke aloud to himself. "…Hold steady, aaand…"

"WHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOO! I'm alive now!" Came a voice from behind.

Fortunately, Dipper stopped himself from pulling the trigger as he heard the shrieking voice. He simply froze for a second.

"Whew! Thank God!" Clifford wiped his brow, only to – again – realize that he didn't need to, as he never sweated. He sighed and told his nephew, "Now aim again."

And so he did. He took all the steps he'd taken before again, matching the sides of the triangle to Bill, holding steady on the target, and he was ready to pull the trigger.

"And a one… And a two… and…" He pulled the trigger, put the gun down to see what happened to his target when he shot him. He was completely sure that he had done everything right and if all went well…

But at the moment that they shot, Bill decided to move to the side.

And the gunfire only hit a pine tree nearby, snapping _that_ out of existence.

"NOOO!" The duo said in unison and frustration. Neither one could believe that they had lost such great chance to end an apocalypse.

But when Bill began to slowly turn their way, they realized that things could always get worse.

"Dipper! Get down!" Clifford whispered to his nephew urgently before the demon could completely turn around. The twelve year old then hid beneath the window.

"Well, Well, Well. And Here I Thought Today Couldn't Get Any _Better_!" He spoke in his creepy, animated voice and shot a ray from his finger to the clock tower, causing an explosion.

The explosion destroyed the head of the small tower, making bricks and wooden columns fall on the two. Dipper covered his head to avoid being hit, and when he felt like he was safe, he opened his eyes and looked around.

"Great Uncle Ford!" He shouted, only to hear grunting noises from where the window used to be. His uncle was now trapped under wreckage. "Oh no!" The nervous twelve year old ran towards his uncle, but the old scientist stopped him by raising his hand.

"Dipper. Take these journals." He said and tossed a backpack his way, inside which the third, second and first journals were. Dipper picked up one of them.

"Dipper. These journals hold the key to another way of defeating Bill. So don't worry about missing this shot." Clifford said and smiled. Dipper replied with a sad smile and picked up the backpack.

At that moment, Clifford heard a low sound from behind, "Oh no! Dipper, get down!" he shouted at his nephew, who did as told, wasting no time. Dipper ran towards the stairway and quickly went to the lower floor, where Bill wouldn't see him.

"Good Old Six Fingers," Said the former dream demon to the trapped scientist. "I've Been Waiting An _Eternity_ To Have A Chat Face-To-Face!" He added and lifted him from where he had been trapped with his newly-gained power, but then noticed something that was off with his old friend. "Whoa! Looks Like You've Been Really Working Your Head Off To Clean Up After Yourself, Eh?" He taunted sarcastically as he played around with the scientist's left wrist, where his hand had once been.

Clifford struggled to break free from the force that was keeping him floating in the air, but couldn't. Bill had gained an extraordinary amount of power, and he was taking the most advantage of it.

He then turned around, moving the old scientist with him as well to show him to his demonic friends. "Everyone, This Armageddon Wouldn't Be Possible Without Help From Our Friend here. Give Him A Six-Fingered Hand!" He encouraged the demonic crowd, who in turn responded with a well-deserved applause. Bill then added, "Make Sure It's Only One, Cause Fordsy's Lost One Of His Hands Already!" And he let out a hysteric laughter.

Clifford thought about how he could come back to the demon. He couldn't possibly break free from his invisible grip. Therefore, he was only trapped in the air, forced to watch his biggest foe humiliate him in front of the other demons. He couldn't let this happen.

But what if he showed him that none of that was making him embarrassed or angry at all? If it worked on bullies in the fifth grade, why wouldn't it work now on Bill?

So he let out a hysteric laughter at whatever the demon was saying in the meantime. Bill stopped, looked at the scientist, and his large eyebrow turned down on his eye, forming a frown.

Clifford kept on laughing, but then stopped himself and coughed, as if he was ashamed of letting his laughter out. "Oh, sorry. Seems like I've interrupted your presentation." And he let out another laughter, even more hysteric than the one before.

"What Are You Laughing At, Sixer?" Bill asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I'm laughing at YOU, that's what!" Clifford said, wearing a smirk. He then noticed his nephew from the side of the wrecked building, watching him, but ignored him. "I'm laughing at how excited you are about your new situation in this dimension, but there's one thing that you're not aware of; you're going so fast for your own good." He said and stopped. "Your behavior reminds me of a six year old kid. Why? Because you are just glad that you have made a small part of your way to own our dimension, just like a kid doesn't foresee what will happen if they punched a glass with sheer strength, and then see that it falls off and breaks." He gestured the breaking of the glass.

Bill in turn let out a short chuckle and turned to his friends. "Looks Like _Someone's_ Lost Their Mind, Right, Guys?"

"I haven't lost my mind." Clifford said. "But you _do_ have a chance of losing the victory that is only this far away." He said and held his thumb and index finger of his right hand close to each other. "Why is that? Because _you_ have a weakness, and I will destroy you using that weak spot."

"This Is Getting Boring, Don't You Think?" Bill said and faked a yawn, but Clifford detected a shade of worry in his voice, which didn't escape from Dipper either. The twelve year old muffled his laughter with his hand as he watched Bill fake a laid back expression. He had seen what a real laid back person would act like, courtesy of hanging out with Wendy.

"You don't seem bored at all, Bill." Clifford said playfully, but the demon ignored him.

"I Picked You Up For Nostalgia, Not For This Crap." He said, unaware of a twelve year old who was seeing and hearing every single word. He cringed at the c-word. This was the second time he'd heard a word he wasn't supposed to hear. "Let's Change The Subject With A Little Riddle, Like The Old Times, How Does That Sound?" He stopped, but not long enough for the old scientist to say a word and assumed a pose. "Why Did The Old Man Do _This?"_

Clifford instantly knew that whatever reason Bill was saying this riddle, it couldn't be good. But the shade of anxiety in his voice was painfully obvious, and so was his intentions. To Clifford, It was hysteric too.

So he let out another laughter, making the demon mad. There was something about the old scientist that was different, and it was seriously messing with his temper.

"You think that's so clever, don't you?" Clifford said. "I've been fooled by you for years, but I've learnt my lesson. You will have to try much, much better than-"

"ENOUGH!" Screamed the demon and transformed into his big, red form. He had completely lost patience, which was something neither Dipper nor Clifford – Stanford – had ever seen. "I'LL RIP THAT SMIRK OFF OF YOUR FACE! I'LL TORTURE YOU WITH A FIVE-HUNDRED VOLT ELECRIC VOLTAGE! I'LL… I'LL… I'll…"

"Oh, come ON…" He cooed mockingly. "You are scaring me, Bill. Do you know what physical impacts fear has on a human? Especially such great, frightening fear of _your_ torture-"

"ENOUGH!" The demon repeated himself, this time louder, then shot a ray from his eye to the old scientist who was currently messing with his mood, turning him to gold, making him fall on the ground.

Dipper gasped as he saw what the demon did to his uncle. He couldn't believe what he saw. His uncle had turned into a mere statue from an actual living person. Was he… _dead…?_

Bill breathed heavily for a few seconds – not that he breathed at all – and then turned into his regular, yellow form. "We'll see what you have to say _now,_ Ford."

These last few words made Dipper lose his patience. He couldn't stand there and let his foe treat his uncle like garbage. He couldn't run away like a coward. He couldn't sit down and watch the demons continue to celebrate their victory while his uncle sat somewhere… probably inside their pyramid.

He clenched his fists and teeth tight with a burning sense of bloodlust he hadn't experienced before. He wanted to rip that useless demon to pieces. He wanted to make the misshapen, monstrous beings pay back for the disrespect they had had for their world. He wanted to… He didn't know what he wanted, but he knew how to get it. He wanted to _destroy them._

"THAT'S ENOUGH!"

.

 **Author's Notes: This particular installment came out a little bit sooner than I'd expected. I hope you've enjoyed it! Leave a review and let me know, and stay tuned for the next chapter! :)**

 **-H80NP**


	18. More Is More

**Chapter Eighteen: More Is More**

Wendy Corduroy picked up two cans of Pitt Cola from the small fridge on the roof of the Mall. One was for herself, and another for her twelve-year-old friend who had paid her a very pleasant surprise visit in an otherwise hateful situation. He was now sitting at the other end of the roof, blankly staring at the distance. Wendy had already heard everything from him, so she understood why he was acting unlike his usual self. Having his uncle be turned to gold by a demon was not exactly a nice thing to see, especially when his own twin sister had been lost beforehand as well. And as far as she knew the doofus, he was probably blaming it all on himself - it was nothing new. She would have been the same way if her own father was captured by Bill, but to be honest, her yearly apocalypse trainings had helped her a fair amount, too.

The redhead walked across the roof and sat beside Dipper, handing him a can of soda. The preteen took the can without saying a word. The two popped their cans open in unison and each took a sip in complete silence.

"Man, the end of the world." Wendy said, trying to open up a small talk, "Those death metal album covers got it shockingly right." And she took another sip.

But in the meantime, Dipper's mind was aimlessly racing, desperately trying to take in all that had happened and reminding himself of his awful dream last night. Frighteningly, all of his dream had come true. The sight upon him was just the same as the first thing he remembered witnessing in his nightmare. His confusion felt terribly familiar. The red sky, the misshapen demons, the torn up signs, the floating pyramid, more misshapen demons…

 _Wendy_.

He remembered of the last part of his nightmare again. _Just more fuel to the anxiety_. The pre-teen's mind was suddenly littered with gruesome flashbacks which he never wanted to remember again, but he couldn't get off his back. He shook his head as the scenes were relived in his mind; Wendy wrestling a demon with countless eyes, her failing and falling down, drowning in a pool of dark red…

 _What is that was next to happen?_

His eyes slowly, but fearfully widened at the last thought. He didn't want to let that idea grow on him, but, horrifyingly, it all made sense. All other details from his nightmare had happened, and if the drill were to stay the same, his fierce, redheaded crush would…

His gaze slowly shifted to a relatively calm Wendy, sipping from a can of soda as she stared at the distance. Dipper looked closely and memorized every detail. Her freckles, her fire red hair, a piece of green flannel tied on the top of her head – which used to belong to her shirt – the black lines drawn on her cheecks, her emerald green eyes… Who knew, maybe it was the last time he would see those eyes, those freckles, the red hair… and _Wendy_ again.

The pre-teen looked at the town again. He would have thought that he could solve anything with help from his lucky stars, but with all that was in front of the two, Dipper couldn't be so sure. His hope was slowly flickering away as he noticed more creatures he hadn't seen by far cause havoc, tear and break and destroy as their darkened hearts pleased. It wasn't long before the thought he never felt he would have begun to spread its roots within his mind.

 _They had lost._

He went in to take another sip from his can of soda, only to find that it was already empty.

"Out of drinks, huh?" Wendy calmly said and the teen slowly turned to the redhead. She was wearing a soothing, yet sad smile. "Want me to getcha another one?"

It took Dipper a long moment to fully realize what she was saying. "Oh… no thanks, I'm good." And he took his gaze away from her, looking down to his swollen legs. _What else could he do, anyway?_

Wendy chuckled. "Alright then. Just know that there's a full stack back there." She slowly pointed to the back, where a now-malfunctioning fridge was, but the pre-teen didn't even bat an eye. The redheaded apocalypse-warrior was suddenly much more worried about his little friend. Even considering how bad things were, Dipper still seemed to be overreacting to it. He was not in his element at all. All he had done since they had come upstairs was to stare in the distance silently. _This wasn't right._

"Dipper?" She uttered softly, to no avail. Dipper was still absently swinging his feet back and forth from the edge of the roof.

"Dude, what's wrong?" She said, this time louder, hoping to get noticed.

It took him a few seconds, but he replied. "What's _wrong_?" And he looked up, his eyebrows tilted up to his forehead, frowning. "What's _wrong?_ Don't you see?" His voice was shaking as he pointed to the town.

"Yeah, I do. So what?" She simply said, waiting for an answer. "We've dealt with worse before."

"No… we haven't." He said and looked back at the disturbing sight of what used to be his home for the summer. "The journals are destroyed, Ford's been captured, Mabel's lost…" He toned his voice down. "Bill said it himself, there's no room for heroes out here…" He didn't believe he was about to say there words out loud, but it had been proven to him, " _We lost."_

Wendy was quick to reply. "Look, dude, It's not over yet." She said and stood up. "You've beaten Bill twice before, why's this time any different?"

Dipper thought back on his two fights against the demon. On both cases, he had much support from others, whether it be the journal, his uncle, _his twin…_

"'Cause then I had Mabel."

Wendy grabbed the pre-teen's shoulders and looked him in the eye. "Then we need to get Mabel back." Dipper looked up to her, in disbelief. She wasn't making a suggestion, she was telling him. "Look. This summer, I've seen some amazing things. But nothing as amazing as you and your sister.

"I don't know if it's dumb luck, or yin and yang, or whatever," she turned to Dipper, smiling. "But when you two work together, it's like, there's nothing you two can't accomplish."

Dipper was unintentionally smiling. The redhead was right. With Mabel, he could make anything happen, and this past few months had proven this to be true. Nobody else could have accomplished what the two had done together. Not even Ford himself…

And if he had the help of Wendy to rely on as well, it was even better. If Mabel was missing, the only thing they needed to do was to find her, and then they would save the world.

"You just need to make up," And she slammed her fists together, "Team up, and save the universe!"

Dipper was feeling much better now, determined to go after his twin, but a very important question came up in his head. "But how will I ever find her?"

Right on cue, an ear-splitting screech of a monster went off. The two blocked their ears and looked at the owner of the sound, which grabbed the top of a billboard with its inhumane mouth, swallowed it, and walked away.

But what had been behind the billboard caught their – and especially Dipper's – eyes. A pink, cracked bubble with a very familiar, star-like shape on it. Dipper recognized the shape immediately – How could he not? It was the same sweater his now-missing twin had been wearing all summer long, and even before. Dipper never liked how she wouldn't get off that sweater since the fourth grade, but now was no time to complain. He was thankful that this very obvious clue to where his sister likely was had fallen right at his hands.

Wendy seemed to be thinking about the same thing. She may have not seen the bubbly preteen as much as Dipper and Soos had, but she _had_ seen her enough to recognize her most trademarked sweaters. The duo shared a serious, yet motivated and determined look and nodded.

 _It was time for a rescue mission._

* * *

"Okay… here we go." Stanford mumbled under his breath, and lay down on the copier once again. He then turned to clone number three, who was standing right above him. "I'm ready."

"Are you sure it's vital to make even more clones?" Number Three asked unsurely and looked at the others present in the messy study room – Two, Four, Five, Six, and six hundred hands. "Because, counting Clifford in, there are seven of us."

Six nodded, frowning. "We might need to sit down and devise our plan, instead of ceaselessly adding to the group."

"The plan is already devised."

"For the most part, yes." Five cut the old scientist off. "But we need to work the details. We know what to do, but we can't mindlessly break in to the Fearamid and expect to succeed."

Stanford nodded. "But we need a larger group. Seven people can't get through an entire army of the demons Bill had brought through." He contrasted and sat up on the copier. "Also, saving Clifford is not our only objective."

"We will also need to form the Zodiac in Bill's pyramid." Two flipped through a few papers and showed the picture of the zodiac to the others. He pointed to the Pine Tree symbol. "As Five and I saw through the periscope, Dipper ran away after Cliff was taken by Bill, with creatures following him. Now, Considering that he had survived…"

"Of course he has survived." Four was quick to reply.

"There's always a chance. I'm simply being logical." Two said and went back to his explanation. "Considering he has survived, we need to spot and bring him to the pyramid. There's also Mabel, who is lost…" He pointed to the shooting star symbol.

Stanford shook his head guiltily at the mention of his great niece. He couldn't help but feel that it was his fault for Mabel running away. Although it was Clifford who had told Dipper about the apprenticeship, _he_ had been the one to push the clone to doing so.

"…Stanley's big employee… _Zeus_?" Number two said, pointing at the Question mark symbol.

"Soos." Several of the clones corrected him.

"Seus. We don't know where he is either. The fez also represents Stanley himself, and there are others who are at various places and need to be found-"

"Which is why we wouldn't be able to set our plan in motion with just six people." Four cut two off. "We can send a few people to look for pieces of the zodiac in the town. Many of them may be caught in the Fearamid."

"Then we will also form a main group to break into the Fearamid and save Cliff, alongsides the others." Said Stanford and snapped his fingers. To him, everything made sense now. With the members of the zodiac all gathered in the pyramid, nothing could go wrong… well, _not much_ at least.

All clones, except for Six nodded. The unwilling clone then agreed half-heartedly. "If it will work, I'm onboard with it."

Number three then went back to the copier, now sure that this was the best solution. Stanford lay back down on the copier and adjusted himself, to make sure all of his body parts would be copied splendidly.

Stanford nodded to his clone, who had the number three patch on his turtleneck. Three nodded back and simply asked, "How many?"

* * *

 **Author's Notes: I'm** _ **terribly**_ **sorry that I'm late for uploading again! (Hell, this is beyond late) I was really busy with school, and didn't write much of anything in that time – except a Wendip Three-parter which I've also uploaded, but nothing of Disposable heroes.**

 **But anyways, I'm back with the story, and I'm definitely writing more of Disposable heroes this summer, hopefully to finish it soon. I hope you've enjoyed this long-overdue hell of a chapter! As always, your reviews are always appreciated!**

 **-H80NP**


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